


One Side Will Make You Grow Taller

by Bishopsbird



Category: Sherlock Holmes & Related Fandoms, Sherlock Holmes (Downey films), Sherlock Holmes - Arthur Conan Doyle
Genre: Anorexia, Cocaine, Drug Use, Eating Disorders, Friendship, Gen, OCD, Obsessive-Compulsive
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-03-07
Updated: 2013-05-26
Packaged: 2017-12-04 15:07:51
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 7
Words: 23,926
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/712104
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Bishopsbird/pseuds/Bishopsbird
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Not eating was something Watson did when he was young. He's over that now. So he's a little careful with his food and likes to be organised and neat. It doesn't mean that he has a problem.</p><p>But when Holmes comments about his weight after a difficult case, Watson realises that he's not better after all.</p><p>Written for the kink meme</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> I wrote this ages ago for a wonderful prompt for the kink meme for the Robert Downey movies, but it's ACD!Sherlock in my head. Some text by ACD used through this. The italics at the beginning of each part are from Alice in Wonderland.
> 
> The prompt:
> 
> Watson was chubby as a child, and is now meticulous about the organisation and appearance of food and self-conscious about his weight, both of these things amplified during the stress of a case. A joke made by Holmes is received the wrong way.

_'Give your evidence,' the King repeated angrily, `or I'll have you executed, whether you're nervous or not.'_

_`I'm a poor man, your Majesty,' the Hatter began, in a trembling voice, `—and I hadn't begun my tea—not above a week or so—and what with the bread-and-butter getting so thin—and the twinkling of the tea—'_

_`The twinkling of the what?' said the King._

_`It began with the tea,' the Hatter replied._

For Holmes, it started with a single comment. Just a few words, strung together without thought. Holmes, relaxed at the end of a case, had given free rein to his sardonic wit. Just one comment, nothing at all really and yet—

And yet, when Holmes thought back over the long train of events triggered by his seemingly innocuous phrase, he wished he could have changed everything. It would have been so easy. To think before he spoke. To have not said anything, or to have said something completely different.

Holmes, with his unmatched powers of observation, liked to say that he could look at anyone and deduce not only his past behavior but also give a credible estimate about his likely future actions. He could see, with a keenness that was sometimes unnerving, the person’s hidden fears and desires.

And yet somehow he had lived with Watson for years and he had never known, had never guessed. There were times when he wondered, yes. Times when he was surprised by the oddities that were unique to the doctor. The neatness. The preoccupation with rules and standards and order. The way he always had to set out his meals the exact same way, at the same time (or as near to it as was practical) each day. The application of what (to Holmes) was an entirely unnecessary degree of attention to his personal attire. But Holmes had too many uncommon habits of his own to sneer at another man’s quirks and most of the doctor’s behavior passed before him, seen but not examined, noticed but not taken for anything more than another one of the little mannerisms that made Watson who he was.

And so, all unknowing, he had open his mouth, spoken without thinking, and broken open something dark and terrible within the doctor.

 

For Watson, it began on Sunday morning, shortly after the successful conclusion of the case of the purloined pineapple (a matter far too sensitive to the ruling families of Europe for Watson to even consider including in his writings). Breakfast, prepared by Mrs. Hudson, lay in front of the two men.

Watson bent forward in his chair, carefully arranging several pieces of toast on one of the plates before buttering a slice and placing it in his mouth.

The case had been one of Holmes’s more difficult problems. There had been late nights, when the sounds of Holmes’s violin playing didn’t cease until the early hours of the morning. There had been the false confession, the problem of the bishop’s daughter, and of course, the long and difficult chase after the thief down the dark and dirty London streets.

Neither man had eaten dinner the night before—they had both retired early to their bedrooms, too tired for even the simple exertion required to gain sustenance—and now Watson, having eaten one buttered slice of bread, was attacking the bacon and eggs on his plate with all the power of his long-delayed hunger.

Holmes paused in his casual perusal of the agony columns and lowered his newspaper, amused.

“Slow down, man!” he said. “You’d think you hadn’t eaten in a week.”

Watson placed his fork on his plate, his month still full of egg. He swallowed.

Before he could speak, Holmes continued. “If you continue in this vein, I wouldn’t be surprised if you put on half a stone in the next fortnight.” He made a show of running his eyes over his companion’s form. “Or perhaps you’ve already made a start in that direction? You’ve been looking as though you’ve enjoyed a few good meals recently.”

Watson looked down at his plate and for a long moment there was silence. Then Holmes moved to pour himself another cup of tea, and the sound of liquid flowing into the bone china of the cup was loud in the small sitting room.

“I haven’t,” Watson said slowly.

Holmes was deep in the agonies again, reading a query from an Irish governess seeking employment with a family with “children under eight and preferably a large house in the country.” She claimed that she specialized in “providing care to families suffering from recent maternal losses.” A fortune hunter then, and not an especially subtle one. Perhaps this column was worth saving for his files.

“Haven’t what?” Holmes asked, still reading.

“I haven’t been eating well lately,” Watson said. His cheeks were flushed and his voice was oddly defensive. “We didn’t even have dinner last night.”

“Really, Watson,” Holmes said. “You’re making rather much of this, don’t you think? I merely meant to suggest that you might want to leave some breakfast for the rest of us.”

At that, Watson, his face still flustered, stood and placed his napkin, folded into neat squares, on his chair. This was another of those odd little habits of his (along with creative bread arranging). He seemed completely unable to leave a finish a meal without first twisting his napkin into fastidious little shapes that reminded Holmes of the Japanese art of origami.

“I have to see to a patient,” he said abruptly.

“I thought you said you had a free morning today.”

“I forgot about Mrs. Underwood. I really should stop by and see how she’s recovering from that cold of hers.”

“Give the dear lady my best then,” Holmes said, absently, having moved on to the paper’s coverage of the recent scandal in Bohemia, a matter in which he was not completely uninvolved.

Watson was already up and out of the door, his footsteps fading echoes on the stairs, when Holmes finally looked up, and noticed the doctor’s uneaten meal slowly cooling on Mrs. Hudson’s china.

 

It was nothing, really, Watson said to himself as he walked quickly down Baker Street. Holmes hadn’t meant anything by his comment. He hadn’t even been listening to Watson, or really looking at him, even. Too focused in his bloody agony columns to even offer a word of congratulation or thanks for the way Watson had handily cornered the thief at the conclusion of their long chase the night before.

The sky was overcast, the air humid and wet, with the constant threat of rain—what passed for a nice day in London. Watson continued on his way without any particular destination in mind. The story about Mrs. Underwood was a lie, of course.

It was nothing. He would shake it off. After all, there was no way Holmes could have known, right?

For Watson, life was like walking on a tightrope. There was the constant threat of losing, of letting go, stepping off—

Falling.

And there were defenses, little things, he had to do all the time, just to make himself feel balanced. His clothing had to be perfectly laundered and pressed. There was justification for this, of course, since it wouldn’t do for a doctor to have a slovenly appearance. And his personal quarters—orderly, with everything in its place. And his food: never too much, meals perfectly weighed out in advance in his mind. If Watson overate at dinner, he would balance his indulgence with a light breakfast the next day. Every day, the same foods, the utensils clean and properly arranged on his plate, neat, small bites taken—these were small things, yes, but sometimes Watson felt like they were all he had.

There were patients who died, sometimes, whatever he did to help them, and Holmes’s cases he shown him that a judicious, careful life was no protection against the cruelty of chance.

But if Watson could take those careful, measured bites of breakfast, if he could make his weekly visit to the weighing machine at the Turkish baths to see that familiar number appear on the scale—well, then he knew that something was right in his world. That there was something at least that he could control.

It hasn’t always been like this. There had been a time once, long ago, when food hasn’t been something to weigh and measure. There had been a time when Watson had indulged with abandon—cake at birthday parties, pudding after supper, crisps bought from a food cart on the street—all consumed without anything but pleasure.

He had been a pleasant, easy-going child, but, as his father had never hesitated to say, he had also been a chubby child. Plump, stout—it didn’t matter what word one used, they all meant the same thing, really: fat.

One day he had come home excited from school. A guest speaker had come in to talk to his form about his work as an army medic and suddenly everything had together for the young John.

“I’ve going to be a doctor,” he had told his parents proudly at tea.

“You, a doctor?” his father had laughed. “I’d like to see that. Who would take advice from a fat doctor?”

John had already eaten one of the biscuits his mother’s maid had set out for the tea. Now he took another, and chewed noisily, trying to ignore his father’s words. He was used to hearing this type of criticism. He was lazy, his father reminded him at every opportunity, not interested enough in sport and in no way type of son his father had hoped for.

“You could stand to be a little more active, John dear,” his mother said.

John had looked up, surprised and hurt by her comments. Usually his mother had a ready defense if anyone found fault with him.

“Perhaps try to make a little more order in your life? You have to be organized and in control to work in medicine, not scatter brained and lazing about all day like you do,” she continued. “I can barely see the floor in your room for all the clothes and objects you have scattered about. As it is, I feel terrible even asking the girl to clean in there.”

“I’m sorry. I’ll clean it,” John had mumbled, shamefaced and looking down at his tea. He was used to his father thinking that he was not a good enough son. It was common knowledge around town that Mr. Watson could find fault with anyone and anything. But his mother? Well, if she also thought he was lazy, then it must be true. Did she think he was fat, too?

His father had said. “You’ll clean it now. Go on, you’ve had enough tea.”

“Yes,” his mother said. Her voice was full of laughter, her tone light, but her words had pierced him. “You might want to leave some biscuits for the rest of us.”

And so the young John had retreated to his room. The biscuit he had eaten felt heavy in his stomach as he had haphazardly straightened up his things. His mom had been joking, he told himself. He shouldn’t be so sensitive. But what if she had been speaking the truth? What if she agreed with the boys who teased him for his slow, clumsy walk and the way he asked for seconds at the school dinners?

That day hasn’t changed everything, but it had been a tipping point. Afterward things were different. His mother withdrew from him. She was still kind to him, but she defended him less, and while she didn’t often give voice to any disapproval of him, he could sense the disappointment between his words.

And so young John had eventually decided to set things right. And in trying to take control, he had lost it.

But Watson hadn’t consciously thought of that conversation in years. In fact, recently he had been feeling better. He was a successful doctor now, with a thriving practice. He had his own flat (well, a flat shared with Holmes). The drug mania that had threatened their early acquaintance has passed, and Watson no longer came home to find Holmes with the poison within him. Recently, they had settled into an easy pattern of cohabitation and collaboration, and Watson had started to look for the increasingly frequent moments when the detective would turn to him and, in a studiedly off-hand manner, ask for his thoughts on a case.

Watson skipped one weigh in at the Turkish baths, than a second. He bought a treat from a bakery one afternoon, and ate it while walking down the street, and found that all of his clothing still fit the next day. He left his coat lying on a chair before retiring to bed one evening instead of hanging it neatly in the closet and the word didn’t end before morning.

Only now, as he walked in the London gloom, he realized that his satisfaction was illusion. Holmes’s words echoed in his mind, in the detective’s high, mocking voice: you might want to leave some breakfast for the rest of us.

Watson had been slipping. He had been falling into his old, lazy ways. How could he have let himself slip this far without noticing? Holmes had noticed, clearly. Tall, thin Holmes, who had been annoyingly slender for as long as Watson had known him and who probably couldn’t even gain weight if he tried.

Holmes, who would never want a stout companion. Holmes, who wouldn’t want a fat friend assisting him on his cases.

There were adjustments, things he could do to fix this. Eating breakfast had been a mistake, Watson could see that now. He had not taken breakfast for years, and had only started fairly recently when, soon after he moved in with Holmes, he had realized that the meal was a good way to lure his friend out of bed in the mornings.

The indulgences would have to stop, Watson promised himself, until he had lost enough weight (how much? At least a stone that was how much Holmes seemed to know he needed to lose). He would need to weigh himself at the baths, get an idea of his starting point, and then…

The baths! Perfect. Watson would go to the baths and weigh himself right now. It would hurt to see how far he had sunk, yes, but at least he would know that he taking steps to correct it.

His stomach rumbled then, as if on cue. And he would not eat. The bread he had eaten already was enough—it wasn’t as though he deserved more food.

So Watson set off with renewed vigor. He felt empty inside, his stomach mostly hollow, and yet at the same time full of a new confidence and sense of purpose.

 

There was a reason why Holmes wasn’t often praised for his tact or courtesy. Several reasons, in fact. He had little patience for the polite gestures of civilized life, and worse, and an aversion to lying in mixed company. And while Holmes rarely set out to offend anyone, what he considered benign statements of patently observable facts were often taken by others as unforgivable intrusions of privacy. The worst were his jokes: Holmes’s attempts at humour were always hilarious to Holmes himself (who had the benefit of being able to make the leaps of logic that his comedy required) yet frequently fell flat when spoken out loud.

Such appeared to be the case with his earlier comments to Watson. Holmes had meant his criticism of the doctor to be a joke. Surely even the suggestion that Watson would have gained weight was absurd: the doctor’s appearance hadn’t varied at all since Holmes had met him. Likewise, Holmes’s “anger” at Watson’s eating was clearly not rooted in fact. Holmes was fully aware that both of them hadn’t eaten dinner the night before, and didn’t view Watson’s behavior as glutinous in the slightest respect.

As Holmes prepared the mixture for a particularly delicate experiment later that afternoon, though, he realized that not only had Watson taken his comments seriously, but he had actually looked somewhat put out by his words. What, exactly, about the conversation had so unnerved his friend Holmes was not sure. It was useless to theorize without data: he simply didn’t have enough information to know the motive behind Watson’s hurt feelings. Still, Holmes though with a sigh, he would have to apologize. If it were anyone else he wouldn’t have cared about the insult, but this was Watson.

The doctor didn’t return to their apartments until several hours later. When he made his entrance, Watson was wet and shivering from cold. Holmes, seated comfortably in the stuffed armchair, watched as Watson carefully took off his coat and hung it up on a rack by the door.

“Did you enjoy your visit to the baths?” Holmes asked.

Watson turned from the rack, where he had began straightening the coats Holmes had draped casually on the pegs. He seemed about to speak, and then, as if thinking better of it, turned his attention back to what he was doing.

“The mud on your shoes,” Holmes explained. “It’s of a dusty shade of red that only occurs in one place in London, as far as I’m aware: the alleyway behind the Turkish baths.”

“Oh,” Watson said simply, not looking up.

“Watson,” Holmes began, and then stopped. This shouldn’t be difficult. “Watson,” he started again. “I believe I owe you an apology.”

At this Watson did turn. The word “apology” was certainly not spoken often in their apartment—at least, not by Holmes.

“I realize that I made some remarks, earlier this morning, that appeared to upset you. I want to assure you that I didn’t intend at all to offend with my comments. I was just trying to lighten the mood a bit, after the difficulties of our case last night.” Watson looked back at Holmes, his face carefully blank. He said nothing.

“It was a joke,” Holmes continued, when he realized that Watson wasn’t going to say anything.

Watson frowned, and an emotion passed over his face and was gone too quickly for Holmes to read. “It’s fine, Holmes,” he said thickly. “We don’t need to discuss it any further.”

“Perfect,” Holmes said. That suited him. He didn’t wish to belabor the issue when it so obviously made Watson uncomfortable.

“Now,” he said, putting his hands together eagerly, “How would you feel about going to my brother’s club for dinner? Mycroft invited us both specially. He said he still owes us for our help with that business with the French consulate’s parrot.”

“I already ate.”

“No, you didn’t,” Holmes said.

“How do you know?”

“It’s obvious, Watson. You forgot your pocketbook at home—there it is on the table—and I know that you only have a few coins in the pocket of that coat. After you paid admission to the baths, you wouldn’t have enough left for anything more than a bun on the street. Certainly not enough for you to buy a full meal.”

“Fine,” Watson said. “You’re right. I haven’t eaten. If you must know, I am not really feeling up to one of Mycroft’s endless dinners, and I was trying to invent a polite excuse to refuse. Although of course, I should know that the notion of manners is wasted on you.” He smiled to let Holmes know that this last was not meant seriously, and some of the tension went out of his face.

Holmes smiled. “Are you sure? Mycroft told me that the cook is making those apple tarts you seemed to enjoy so much last time we ate with him.”

Watson stepped away from him, and returned to tidying the coats rack. “I’m sure,” he said, his voice distant again. “Enjoy your meal.”

In the carriage on the way to the club, Holmes wondered at his friend’s sudden moodiness. Obviously his comments at breakfast were not enough to cause such a change: something else had to be behind the doctor’s strange behavior. It was an interesting problem, certainly. Something to ponder over, time permitting perhaps, in the coming weeks between his cases.


	2. Chapter 2

_`Cheshire Puss,' she began, `Would you tell me, please, which way I ought to go from here?'_  
  
 _`That depends a good deal on where you want to get to,' said the Cat._  
  
 _`I don't much care where—' said Alice._  
  
 _`Then it doesn't matter which way you go,' said the Cat._  
  
 _`—so long as I get somewhere,' Alice added as an explanation._  
  
 _`Oh, you're sure to do that,' said the Cat, `if you only walk long enough.'_  
  
Time did not permit. The cases were many, and varied. Fortuitous for Holmes’s mind (and pocketbook) certainly, but not really allowing him time for an intensive study into Watson’s behavior. Still, Holmes noticed the changes. Before, Watson’s personal quarters had always been tidy. Now they were immaculate. Before, Watson would retire to bed each evening long before Holmes. Now he seemed to go out for long periods of time every night. To what purpose, Holmes did not know, although he did deduce from the varied qualities of mud and dirt on his friend’s shoes that his walks took him for long distances throughout London. The doctor seemed to have a great many more patients as well. He was always just about to visit a new someone, or to check up on an illness, especially if Holmes invited him to try the new restaurant that had opened down the street, or to dine with him at Simpson’s before the opera.  
  
Later, Holmes would wonder why he did not see it. He, London’s supposed finest (and only) consulting detective and he didn’t notice what was happening to his closest friend, in his own apartment? Maybe some part of him had seen. Seen, and retreated from the knowledge.   
  
That was what burned, later, when he couldn’t stop going over these early events in his mind. Perhaps some deep part of him had seen, and had been too afraid to act.  
  
But the truth was, on a conscious level at least, Holmes had noticed nothing and had done nothing, and it had taken Watson almost dying in the middle of the street to awake him up.  
  
  
Not eating was more difficult than Watson had remembered. There was a strength of will, a certain detachment that the task required and which Watson had seemed to have lost. His previous eating regime had been restrained, yes, but not overly so, and Watson had forgotten what it was like to have that constant, pulling feeling in his stomach.  
  
It sounded simple, right? Don’t eat breakfast. A few bites of bread and some greens for lunch. Don’t eat dinner, or if this seems impossible, have an encore of the meal you had earlier in the day.  
  
The only problem was that not eating was easier in theory that in practice. In theory, the act was simple. He just had to refrain from putting anything in his month. A non-action, actually. What could be so hard about that? But in reality, it was a void than grew to fill his every waking moment.  
  
Don’t eat breakfast.  
  
All right, fine. So five minutes would pass, and he still hadn’t eaten breakfast, and he still was hungry. Another five minutes, and still no food in his month and still that aching, screaming emptiness.  
  
Sometimes Watson would give in. He would take one of Mrs. Hudson’s scones, just to have a little bite, and find he had eaten the whole thing. Or one of his patients would offer him tea, and he would accept, just to be polite really, and suddenly he had eaten two of pastries placed neatly in front of him.  
  
Then his whole day would be ruined. And he would go out late at night and walk and walk and walk, in a desperate attempt to burn away the taste of his weakness in his mouth. He would walk without looking where he was going, through dirty alleyways and through empty streets, gathering all sorts of mud and dust on his boots. To Holmes, surely, this debris would be meaningful—Holmes had once boasted to Watson that he could identity any piece of dirt in London blindfolded, simply by the feel of it under his fingers—but to Watson it meant nothing more than that he had been weak, that no matter how far he walked, he couldn’t escape from the fact of his own failure.  
  
Still, he had made some progress. Watson didn’t like to examine himself too closely in mirrors beyond the glances required during his personal toilette. This had been one of the ways he had recovered after the time his parents had liked to call (always in whispers, somehow always to an elderly female relative who wore a look of concern mixed with gleeful anticipation at hearing about a scandal) John’s Trip to the Countryside. Don’t look in the mirrors, and you can’t be too upset with what was reflected there.  
  
But he knew he was losing weight. His trousers were looser, and he had needed to fasten his belt more tightly. He visited the baths, and been reassured by the number he saw on the scale, although, of course, it was still not low enough.  
  
So Watson was fine, really—he was making process, he was coasting, he was marking time. And he was ignoring that faint inner voice that reminded him that this was how it had started last time. That last time he had been fine at the beginning too.  
  
It wasn’t like he didn’t know what he was doing. He had seen patients who ate too little for too long, and he knew what it did to their bodies. He passed by the begging children that no one really looked at in the streets, and he saw how their spare limbs looked sickly and how hunger had stolen away their strength.  
  
But none of that applied to him. He was large and soft in a way that was completely unacceptable. It was thin people who needed to worry about eating enough. People like Holmes. Not him.  
  
These were thoughts that ran through Watson’s head, as he stood on a narrow street in one of the seedier parts of the city, trying to banish his hunger.   
  
Holmes was trying to locate a man who had stolen confidential documents from his workplace, and he had almost run his quarry to ground. Holmes was watching the criminal’s house, some blocks away, and Watson was keeping guard at the house of his accomplice.   
  
The man had to show up at one of the two places sometime that day. Holmes had said that he was certain of it. Yet that had been early in the morning, and now it was late afternoon, the shadows of the houses long on the street.  
  
Watson was tired, and trying to ignore it. He had eaten nothing all day. Holmes had woke him up at some unspeakable hour, enlisting his help. Of course, there had been no time to get anything to eat, which Watson hadn’t really minded at the time, since he shouldn’t be eating in the morning anyway.  
  
But now it was late, and he had still had nothing. There was a little bakery across the street, and he had been staring into its windows all day. It would only take a few minutes to pop across the street and buy something, but Watson didn’t want to leave his post. What if the man appeared in the time it took him to complete his purchase?   
  
Beside, he didn’t need any pastries.   
  
Only, he had been shivering slightly for the last half hour, despite the mildness of the afternoon. And his legs felt decidedly unsteady beneath him, and there was a pounding feeling in his head. Watson was resting some of his weight on the wall of the house. Now he stood, slowly, the unsteady feeling increasing.  
  
Perhaps he would just go quickly and buy something. Not a pastry, no, but maybe a drink, something hot to warm him up.   
  
Watson quickly scanned the street to make sure the man they had been looking for wasn’t going to show up at that exact moment. He glimpsed a figure, walking toward him at the interaction of the street. Could it be—  
  
Yes, it was Holmes, his long stride covering the distance quickly. The detective’s face was dejected, so he probably hadn’t apprehended the criminal, but perhaps he had some news that would let Watson end this terrible vigil.  
  
Watson started walking down the center of the street, eager to close the distance between them. He quickly saw that this was a mistake: the dizziness was worse when he was moving and his legs, stiff from the long period standing and waiting in the street, wobbled beneath him.   
  
He came to a stop, trying to shake off the feeling, but it was too late. Now the edges of his vision were bleeding, his view of the street cloudy.   
  
There was a sound behind him—hooves on stones—could that be a hansom cab on this quiet street? He would have to get out of the road.  
  
His legs wouldn’t obey him. And then he was drifting, falling. His vision grew murky, and faded. The image of his surroundings grew lighter and dissipated into whiteness.  
  
And then nothing at all.   
  
  
The day was not going well for Holmes. Keeping watch on suspected criminals was a necessary part of detective work, but not one he enjoyed. His active mind rebelled against the tedium, and the hours passed with difficulty. This wasn’t quite as bad as the letdown that sometimes overtook him after he solved a case, but watching an empty house was certainly never going to be high on Holmes’s list of preferred activities.  
  
So Holmes was in a foul mood when, after several fruitless hours, Lestrade walked onto the street. The policeman was wearing a smug expression that suggested that Holmes would not enjoy what his news.  
  
This proved to be correct. They had caught Dobson, the suspected thief, Lestrade, explained, but not at his house or his accomplice’s lodgings, the two places Holmes had been so certain he would be. Instead, the police are cornered Dobson at his workplace, where Lestrade had decided to keep watch just in case Dobson tried to return the missing documents.  
  
Holmes knew that he should be satisfied with this result: the man he had suspected had proved to be the criminal and the case could be successfully finished. But all he could think about was that the wrongness of his conclusion about where the man would be found, and Lestrade was not going to let him forgot this error.  
  
“I know you always let Dr. Watson name your cases for you,” Lestrade said. “But I do think I have a clever idea for what we could call this one. What do you think of the Curious Incident of the Detective Who Knew Nothing of the Criminal’s Whereabouts?”  
  
“I don’t know why you would think that title is clever,” Holmes said.  
  
“Oh, yes, you do,” Lestrade said. “It’s a play from something you said yourself. I saw it in that little tale I read the other day in the Strand. You know, what you said about the curious incident of the dog who did nothing in the…”  
  
“Really, Lestrade,” Holmes said, “I don’t know what you’re talking about. Watson is the one who writes that tripe. If you have ideas about the words he puts in my mouth, you’ll have to take it up with him.”  
  
And with that, thoroughly miffed at the thought that Lestrade had scored a point against him, Holmes had set off to release Watson from his now unneeded post. The day had been rather a waste, he thought, but perhaps a dinner out would take his mind from his failure.  
  
Coming on the street where Watson had been standing guard, he found the doctor standing by the side of the road. Watson, his face brightening as he saw Holmes, started toward him.  
  
Only, something was very wrong with the doctor. His walk was unsteady, and his face was very pale. Watson came to an uncertain stop in the center of the road, and then fell to the ground as though his legs had given out under him.   
  
Holmes rushed toward him and then stopped, startled, as he saw the black form of a hansom cab appear behind Watson. The cab was on a direct course with Watson’s still form. Suddenly Holmes saw everything with a terrible clarity: the horse’s hooves trampling Watson’s body, the wheels of the carriage grinding the blood into the stones of the street.  
  
Holmes screamed, the sound loud in the street. “Move, man!” he yelled to the driver, gesturing at Watson.  
  
The driver of the cab jumped at the noise and at last saw Watson lying in the street. He pulled at the reins, trying to turn the carriage. The horses reared up and veered to the right.  
  
The cab was going too quickly to stop completely, but the horses were turning, turning and—was it enough?—Holmes watched as the hansom cab sped by Watson, the wheels of the carriage narrowing missing him.  
  
And then the cab was clattering away, the driver turning to cursing at Holmes and the wheels vanished into darkness.  
  
Holmes ran to Watson. The doctor was already beginning to sit up stiffly. Holmes reached down and pulled him to a standing position, surprised when Watson came up more easily that Holmes expected.  
  
“Are you all right?” he asked.   
  
“Yes,” Watson said slowly. He was holding his arm stiffly but appeared to be otherwise unhurt.  
  
“What happened?”  
  
“I don’t know. I was fine, and then I just felt dizzy, and then…” Watson voiced trailed off. “I don’t know,” he said again.  
  
“We need to get out of the center of the road,” Holmes said. He helped Watson over to the side of the street, where the doctor sat down against a building and examined his arm. Watson pushed his shirtsleeve up to reveal an angry red mark.  
  
“Are you sure you’re all right?” Holmes said again. “Did you make sure to eat and drink while you were on watch?”  
  
Watson looked up at Holmes, his eyes bright against the pallor of his face. “I forgot,” he said slowly. “I meant to.”  
  
“All right,” Holmes, somewhat relieved. Not eating or drinking all would explain why Watson had fainted. The doctor’s collapse was still frightening, but it was less worrisome for Holmes if it was caused by a simple lack of food rather than some unknown and possibly serious illness.   
  
“Here,” Holmes said, and handed Watson a flask filled with water. Watson took several grateful sips. His face was still very pale, but his eyes were becoming more forced.   
  
“If you think you can manage to walk,” Holmes said, “we should see about getting you home.”  
  
Watson stood slowly. Holmes watched carefully for any signs of weakness, but the doctor seemed to be steady on his feet.  
  
“I’m fine, Holmes, really,” Watson said. “You don’t need to worry. I was just in one place all day, and I got up too quickly. It’s nothing. Besides, don’t we need to watch for Dobson?”  
  
“Thankfully,” Holmes said slowly, “that is one factor with which we no longer need concern ourselves.”  
  
Once they were seated in a carriage, Holmes began to explain with some discomfort about Lestrade’s arrest and his own miscalculation about Dobson’s whereabouts. He was in the midst of a lengthy discourse about how (hopefully) he would reexamine his methods to discover the flaw that he head him to this failure, when he realized that Watson leaning back with his eyes closed and not listening.  
  
Holmes broke off, and looked more closely at his companion.   
  
Holmes, his mind on the practically of returning Watson to their flat, was more frightened than he had let on in front of his friend. Yet at the same time, he could see a reasonable cause for this collapse.  
  
For Holmes, food was often an inconvenience. Holmes was ruled by his mind, and he put the needs of his intellect before other, more prosaic bodily requirements. It was not unusual for Holmes to simply forget to eat, or even to actively deny himself food (with the idea that hunger focused his thinking) while in the midst of one of his more demanding cases. As such, Holmes knew how easy it was to let that lightheaded feeling carry him into a faint (although never, he admitted, had this happened to him at such an inopportune moment).   
  
Now, he surmised that Watson might be experiencing something similar. The doctor had been especially busy lately, going out at all hours to see his suddenly increased load of patients, and Holmes had only added to these demands by asking his friend to help with his cases. Perhaps Watson, beset on all sides by these responsibilities, had overlooked the basic necessity of caring for himself.   
  
Well, Holmes would see that he remembered. It was, Holmes thought as he gazed at his friend’s resting form, such a role reversal that one almost had to find it amusing. Usually it was Watson who demanded that Holmes get out of bed, eat something, change his clothing, and so on. Now, he would return the favor.  
  
Watson came out of his stupor when they returned to their apartment, and quickly retreated to his personal quarters to clean his arm. Holmes went in search of Mrs. Hudson and explained that yes, he knew it was getting rather late and not the typical hour, but he and Watson had been having an extremely trying day and would she minded terribly if she made them something to eat? Yes, Holmes understood that he couldn’t be particular about what, not at this hour, but he would be satisfied with anything, really as long as the meal included some of her wonderful scones or tarts or really anything with some substance.  
  
Holmes was enjoying a cup of tea along with a somewhat stale but still edible biscuit when Watson entered the sitting room. He had changed into fresh clothing, and some of the color had reappeared in his cheeks.  
  
Holmes poured his friend a cup and gestured for him to take a seat, pushing a biscuit onto his plate. The doctor sank into his chair, and placed the cup on the table without drinking.  
  
“Are you feeling better?” Holmes said.  
  
“It was nothing, Holmes, really. I’m fine.” Watson said. “I don’t know why you continue to ask me this question.”  
  
Holmes drank from his own cup and took another bite of his pastry. Because I don’t know if you’re fine, he thought. Because I am worried. Because that cab almost hit you.  
  
He didn’t say any of this aloud. There was something that seemed off about Watson, something that the detective couldn’t quite put his finger on. But these were all feelings, emotions, little whispers in his mind. The rational, ruling part of Holmes carefully pointed out that there was nothing to suggest that this was anything more than a simple case of overwork and exhaustion.  
  
“I’d be remiss if I didn’t ask after you collapsed in the middle of street, Watson,” he said.  
  
Watson had pulled the plate of biscuits toward him and was carefully rearranging them, pushing them around until each pastry was lined up neatly on the plate. Holmes watched this action in silence, annoyed. Why did Watson always, always have to play with his food like this? Why did he always move everything about on his plate? Why couldn’t he just eat without fiddling with his food first?  
  
And, now, observing Watson’s hands as they reconfigured the pastries, Holmes thought the familiar ritual looked different, somehow. There was something wrong with Watson’s hands, something he couldn’t quite determine.  
  
“You should eat,” he reminded Watson, trying to keep his tone even. Watson took a small bite of his biscuit and placed it carefully on his plate before wiping his mouth with his napkin.  
  
“I just over did it a bit. I’ll be more careful in the future,” Watson said. “I’m surprised you’re so concerned, actually. It’s not like you haven’t ever fainted during a case. I seemed to remember one time—that was last March, wasn’t it?—when you spent three days without sleeping, trying to break that horrible cipher with those stupid dancing men, and when you finally figured it out you stood up to go send the client a telegram and fainted before you got out of the apartment.”  
  
Holmes smiled ruefully. Watson was correct, Holmes had experienced this exact problem in the past, and it was nothing that couldn’t be cured with a large dinner after the case had concluded.   
  
And yet, Watson’s hands. There was something wrong there. Holmes, watching as the doctor lifted his cup up to his mouth—  
  
Freeze.  
  
Holmes’s memory was an immense storage house of facts and events that the detective could readily call up as needed. Now he reached back several weeks, searching for the right picture. Yes, there it was: A night, some time ago. Holmes and Watson enjoying a quiet evening in this very room. Holmes, wanting to paste an article in his casebook, asking Watson to get the book for him. And Watson, who was already standing, stretching his long, powerful arms to reach to pull the book off of the shelf.  
  
Freeze.  
  
Holmes took this image of Watson’s arms reaching for the book and placed it next to the still picture of the doctor, frozen with his cup raised halfway to his lips.   
  
And there it was, an easy change, one Holmes was surprised he hadn’t seen earlier. Watson’s arms were much thinner now than they had appeared several weeks ago, that was the difference. Widen the focus of the picture a bit, and you could see that this was true of the rest of Watson as well: his frame was leaner, the bones more apparent even under his clothing. There was nothing in his appearance that was alarming, and Watson did not look ill, yet the weight loss would be easily observable to anyone who hadn’t seen the doctor for a while. There was just less of him.   
  
And yet Holmes, seeing Watson every day, had been blind to his gradually decreasing form. It was only now, when comparing his friend’s present state to his previous appearance, that he noted the loss.  
  
This observation, slow to describe, passed through Holmes’s agile mind before Watson’s cup reached his mouth. The doctor, drank, swallowed his tea, and looked at Holmes, waiting for a response.  
  
“It may be true that I’ve been careless with myself in the past,” Holmes began.  
  
“May be true?”   
  
“All right,” Holmes said. “It is true that I’ve been careless in the past. But that is certainly no reason for you to follow my bad example.”  
  
Watson shrugged, acknowledging that he heard Holmes’s statement but did not necessarily agree with it. Holmes was still running his eyes over his friend, and wondering at how oblivious he had been.  
  
Holmes had always admired, and at times even been a little jealous of Watson’s sturdy physique. His friend’s solid, muscular body had always seemed to Holmes to be a visible affirmation of Watson’s unwavering dependability. Seeing the doctor next to him on a case was reassuring to Holmes, and he appreciated the respectable air the doctor lent to his investigations. He was so different from Holmes himself, whose spare body, all bones and sharp angles, often created the suggestion (perhaps not altogether unwarranted) that the detective was a devious character who could not be completely trusted.  
  
But now that comfortable solidity was diminished, and Holmes did not like the change. Again, he had to remind himself that Watson gave the appearance of good health, despite his fall this afternoon, and that an outside observer would not have even thought that anything was wrong with him. It was just that Watson was thin, and he had never been thin before.  
  
“Of the two of us,” Watson was saying, “I am the one with the medical degree. I would know if there was cause for concern, yes? And there isn’t.”   
  
Yes, that was true. And so, Holmes had one datum: Watson’s collapse, and another: his weight loss, but still no evidence, no clew to tell him that Watson was in any real danger. Should he say something? But to speak now, without even knowing precisely what was happening, was preemptive. There was no reason to think the situation wouldn’t repair itself once Watson had time to rest and eat properly. And look: Watson was eating now, taking delicate nibbles of his biscuit.  
  
“I’ll stipulate to your medial qualifications,” Holmes said. “But I still think it would be beneficial if the two of us dined together. It’s been a wearisome day and we could both do with a break and something more appealing than these day-old biscuits with which Mrs. Hudson has seen fit to provide us.”  
  
But Watson was shaking his head almost before Holmes had finished speaking. “I think I should lie down and rest tonight, Holmes. I don’t want to push myself too far by leaving the apartment.”  
  
Nonplussed, Holmes frowned at him. But after having just voiced concern for Watson’s health, how could he argue against his friend’s wish for rest? “Very well,” he said, “but you are not going to put me off forever. We can go tomorrow instead.”  
  
As Watson stood, Holmes saw another unwelcome change: Watson’s trousers, previously tailored to his form, now hung loosely on him. This was true of the rest of his companion’s attire as well, Holmes noticed. Watson’s shirt was clean, nicely pressed, yet perhaps a size too large and even his belt was notched more closely around his waist.  
  
“Those trousers don’t fit you,” Holmes said. The words seemed to have formed themselves and passed through his lips without thought.   
  
Watson did not seem to register this comment, or if he did, he gave no sign of it. “Good night, Holmes,” he said, and left.  
  
That night as Holmes lay in bed, after having dined alone once again, he tried to stop himself from ruminating over the unsettling observations of the day. It was futile, a superfluous effort. He would simply see that Watson ate a little more, and spent a bit less time out and about London at all hours and the matter would be fixed.  
  
But if this was true, then why did Holmes have a sharp, menacing sense that something much more insidious was occurring?   
  
Holmes finally succeeded in closing his eyes, but his sleep was light and uncomfortable. And when he woke, he had a fleeting image of a dark dream in which he and Watson moved to the strains of a menacing melody, Watson leading him in the steps of an intricate and somehow unpleasant dance. He rose, and the dream faded from his memory, leaving him in a bitter mood that lasted throughout the morning.


	3. Chapter 3

_She waited for a few minutes to see if she was going to shrink any further: she felt a little nervous about this; `for it might end, you know,' said Alice to herself, `in my going out altogether, like a candle. I wonder what I should be like then?'_  
  
Waiting at the tailor the next day, Watson shifted impatiently from one leg to another. The events of the previous afternoon had been trying, and Watson was still shaken over what had happened. Not so much the fainting, or his near collision with the hansom cab, but rather what Holmes would think after seeing in such a state. Perhaps he would decide that Watson was weak and untrustworthy. Maybe Holmes would even stop letting him assist with his cases.  
  
Well, there was nothing Watson could do at this point to repair that unfortunate impression. He could and would do something about the state of his dress, however. The degree of sloppiness his inattention had caused was unacceptable. And that was why he was waiting now, with a suit folded over his arm and the other elements of his wardrobe packed up neatly in his Gladstone bag for the tailor to alter.  
  
To some degree, Watson was pleased by Holmes’s remark about his trousers. It meant that he really was losing weight—he had known this before, of course, but his progress hadn’t seemed real until his friend had commented on it—and that Holmes had noticed the change. Which was of course the reason why he had embarked upon this project in the first place.  
  
But at the same time Watson had felt a little thrill of fear when Holmes had spoken. Yes, he wanted Holmes to notice. Yes, he wanted Holmes to acknowledge the effort he was making. But he wished that this could somehow happen without Holmes saying anything. He did not know actually know how this could come about, yet he sometimes imagined a nebulous, future date (once he had lost enough weight of course) when the idea that Watson was normal, fine, and above all else, thin, would just be tacitly accepted by the two men without anyone having to say anything.   
  
The idea that Holmes was watching him, that he might be examining Watson’s eating with his eagle-eyed intelligence, tallying up all of his odd habits, and worse of all, running those cold grey eyes over his body, adding up all of his numerous imperfections, judging him, and perhaps finding him wanting…  
  
Well, that scared him. It reminded him of that other time, so long ago, when at first there had been complements, his mother quietly pleased and his father more vocal in his happiness that his son had finally “shaped up”—complements which had turned to concern, worry, and finally, desperation.  
  
“Dr. Watson? Dr. Watson, are you still interested in having your clothing altered?” The tailor’s assistant, a young man with bright yellow hair, was trying to get his attention.  
  
“Yes, of course. I’m sorry,” Watson said, and the man led him into the back room where clients’ clothing was fitted. The tailor, an older man with wispy white hair, was wearing a vest with pins stuck haphazardly into it. He had a cheerful smile and was standing ready with a measuring tape in his hands.   
  
“I know you told Tom here that you wanted all of your suits done today,” the tailor explained as his assistant started to unpack Watson’s clothing. “But I just don’t think that’s going to be possible. We’re been very busy, you know, with the start of the Season and everything. But if we measure you now, I could probably finish a jacket and trousers in time for you to come pick them up this afternoon.”  
  
“Yes,” Watson said. “I have a dinner reservation this evening, so if I can at least look suitable for that, I’d be grateful.” He was sweating now, and could feel the dampness of perspiration under his shoulders. Were they going to make him take off his shirt? He couldn’t do that. He was not anywhere near to being ready for someone to see him unclothed. He would have to make some type of excuse and leave if they suggested it.  
  
But the tailor simply asked him to remove his jacket and stand on a small platform that had been placed in the center of the room, directly next to an ornate silver mirror. Watson stepped up, carefully avoiding his reflection, and waited as the tailor began to measure him.   
  
The tailor was smiling as he began his measurements, but a few minutes, the cheer seemed to seep out of him and a faint wrinkle appeared between his brows. “These are your own suits I’m to alter, is that correct, Dr. Watson? Not borrowed from a friend or anything like that?”  
  
Watson affirmed that they were.  
  
“These will have to been taken in quite a bit. Is there a…well…is there some reason…” The tailor paused. He seemed to be choosing his words very carefully. “That is, I mean to say, do you anticipate that you will continue to require your suits in this size in the near future, Dr. Watson?”  
  
Watson felt his checks redden. This was too much. It was enough when Holmes, his dearest friend, felt the need to point out his immensely unfit appearance, but to have a near stranger criticize him as though it was a crime for someone to be so incredibly fat and heavy? He was trying to lose the weight as quickly as he could. He couldn’t really eat less than he was currently consuming, not without having further fainting episodes like the one that had so concerned Holmes. It wasn’t Watson’s fault that he would require clothing in such a large size until he managed to lose the extra weight.   
  
“I don’t see why this is relevant to the task you are undertaking,” Watson said.   
  
“Please, sir, I don’t mean to give any offense,” the tailor said. “It’s just that, well, as I said, I’ll need to take in these suits quite a bit and once you regain the weight it will be very difficult—and expensive—for a tailor to let them out again.”  
  
Regain the weight. The phrase rang ominously in Watson’s head. “Why do you think I’ll need to have the suits let out again?”  
  
The tailor’s previous good mood was absent now. He bent his head, clearly upset at his client’s displeasure. “I just assumed…I thought that these suits didn’t fit because you were recovering from an illness, Dr. Watson, and didn’t want you to have the added expense of altering all of your suits again once you’ve gotten better.”  
  
Illness. So his weight was so unhealthy that this man thought the extra bulk had to be the result of an actual disease.  
  
Watson looked away from the tailor and his assistant and stared into an empty corner of the room. He would hold himself together, and get through this as though he hadn’t heard the painful implications of the tailor’s statement.  
  
“I’d like all of my suits altered,” Watson said firmly. “And if they need to be taken in again, I assure you that I will have the funds to cover the transaction.”  
  
So, Watson thought with a sigh, as he donned this newly altered jacket and trousers that evening, dinner at Simpson’s. How many meals had he taken there with Holmes? It had to be over fifty. Truth be told, Watson that felt the restaurant, with its restrained decor and uncompromisingly English menu, could be a bit staid at times. Still, it was one of Holmes’s favorite haunts. And Watson, despite viewing this meal as an ordeal to be suffered through, could not deny that his heart lifted once they were seated and Holmes leaned back in his chair and gazed around the familiar room, his features relaxed and utterly at ease.  
  
“Watson, you might be surprised to know that I had the most unexpectedly pleasant conversation today with a woman,” his companion said after they had ordered.  
  
“A woman? Really. How astonishing,” Watson said, trying to hide his smile. He found his friend’s trials with the fairer sex amusing.  
  
Holmes’s reply was interrupted by the arrival of a white-vested waiter with their wine. He placed the bottle on the table, and slowly poured the red liquid into the gleaming crystal glasses. Watson inspected his glass, and fastidiously rubbed away a spot on the stem with his napkin. He knew that he should not drink (wine contained the same type of energy that food did, energy that he did not need) but he took a sip anyway, enjoying the cool, rich taste of the liquid.   
  
He raised the glass to his lips for another.  
  
“Yes, a Mrs. King, a beekeeper by profession, who came down to Town from Sussex to do some research about her apiary,” Holmes was saying. “You are aware, of course, Watson, that like our own nation, bees are a matriarchal society, ruled by a queen—although I suppose Her Majesty would not relish being compared with monarchs of the winged variety—and this Mrs. King shared some interesting thoughts with me on how the hives are effected by the segregation of their ruler…”  
  
Watson nodded, not really listening to the content of his friend’s discourse but rather letting the words wash over him in a stream of melodious sound. Watson was approaching the bottom of his second glass, and the room had begun to take on a soft, luminous quality. The light of chandeliers glinted off of the highly polished stemware and the paneled walls appeared to be no longer old-fashioned or stuffy, but rather refined and comforting in their dark formality.  
  
Presently the food arrived. Watson paused over his knife and fork, deliberating over what to eat and wondering how little he could get away with consuming. The calculation was proving to be difficult. Watson had taken care to eat especially lightly that day to offset the food he would undoubtedly be forced to take with Holmes, and the wine was affecting him more strongly than he had expected. So when his fork placed itself unbidden into his roast potatoes, he was unable to stop himself from taking a large mouthful, and then a second, and soon he was eating his dish with an alacrity born of his long-denied hunger.  
  
Holmes was watching him with a smile that disappeared as soon as he felt Watson’s gaze upon him. “I am aware that I am the one who issued the invitation for this little evening,” he said, “but you must know, I have half a mind to ask you to pay the cheque for our meal tonight.”  
  
“And why is that?” Watson asked.  
  
“You were entirely the cause of a rather unfavorable exchange between Lestrade and myself yesterday, and I feel you owe me a good dinner to make up for the indignities I suffered.” Holmes proceeded to relate Lestrade’s humorous repurposing of lines from Watson’s publication in the _Strand_.  
  
“That does sound like a trying situation.” Watson said, absently taking another bite of his meal. Inwardly, he smiled, picturing Holmes’s consternation. He was always amused when his friend came up at odds against the conception of the detective Watson created in his writings.  
  
“Yes,” Holmes said, “very trying. I accept to some extent, Watson, you writing up—and overly embellishing, I might add—my little adventures for the public’s education, but it’s another matter entirely when you create these ridiculous statements and attribute them to me.”  
  
“I’ll try to make your speeches drier in the future.”  
  
“Yes, that would be helpful. You realize, don’t you, that all of Scotland Yard is reading these fancies that you dream up? The issue came up the other day when I was assisting the police with a routine investigation. I took them step by step through my process, explaining my reasoning and conclusions about the suspect as is my custom, when a young recruit interrupted me, positively furious that I had divulged the criminal’s identity at this stage of the case.”  
  
“Why would he be upset about that?”  
  
“You’re entirely to blame for the whole situation, Watson. The recruit said that I was ruining the experience for him—ruining it, mind you, that’s what he said—because I had spoiled the surprise for him and that the Mr. Holmes of Dr. Watson’s tales never revealed the answer to the mystery before the last page.”  
  
Watson attempted, with little success, to stifle his laughter. His glass was empty, somehow, and now a waiter moved smoothly to his side to refill it. “You might be more accountable for these difficulties than you think. I merely transcribe the events of your investigations and make up much less than you seem to believe. It’s entirely your genius that has so captured the public imagination. You could, perhaps, step back a little, make a few mistakes, and let the police catch the culprit at times.”   
  
“I am certainly not going to make errors simply so you can tarnish the public’s impression of me,” Holmes said. “I cannot agree with those who rank modesty among the virtues. To the logician all things should be seen exactly as they are, and to underestimate one's self—or even to represent one’s self as less than one actually is—is as much a departure from truth as to exaggerate one's own powers.”  
  
“Yes,” said Watson, “that’s exactly what I mean about me dreaming up less than you think. That idea about modesty is beautifully phrased, and I shall have to find a way to work it into one of my narratives.”  
  
Holmes’s mouth turned up in his characteristic smile, and Watson felt an inner, relaxed glow spread through his body.  
  
This calm vanished as he looked down at his plate and saw that he somehow consumed almost all of his meal. How could he have lost control in such a fashion? Except, looking at Holmes’s grinning visage, he realized that he knew exactly how. Holmes, distracting him with conversation that he knew would captivate the doctor, and practically plying him with alcohol, had beaten down Watson’s defenses and opened the floodgates to his gluttony.   
  
Watson pushed his plate away, the full feeling in his stomach suddenly intolerable. His hazy view of the room was lifting, and Watson felt a pressing desire to exit this place, with its complacent diners and coldly competent staff.   
  
The waiters were clearing the plates, and Holmes, unaware of his partner’s discomfort, seemed to be about to suggest that they order an after dinner drink, so Watson hurriedly put forward the notion that they go directly back to Baker Street, where Holmes could enjoy his pipe. To this Holmes acquiesced, and settling up the bill, the two men departed, hailing a hackney as they passed by the Opera House.   
  
After weeks of hunger, emptiness had become a way of life for Watson, and the sensation of satiation in his stomach felt foreign and almost obscene. This was intensified by every jolt and bump of the hackney, and by the end of the trip, Watson was gripping his lower arm tightly with his right hand in an attempt to hold on to his self-possession.  
  
He had to get rid of this feeling. He had to. It was simply intolerable and he felt as though he was going to scream if he had to remain in this state for a single second longer. And there was a way to solve it, a method Watson knew, but—  
  
He had promised himself, back during that other time, that he was never going to do this again. He had promised.  
  
But he couldn’t let this feeling continue. And so he paused before the steps of their flat. “Holmes,” he said, intentionally allowing his eyes to become unfocused and letting his words slip, just a little bit, “you go ahead. I will be up in a minute.”  
  
Holmes stared at him, a question apparent in his eyes.   
  
“I just need a moment alone to compose myself.” Please, please, Watson thought, just go upstairs, Holmes. Your friend has downed countless glasses of wine. And maybe he’s a little drunk, yes, and maybe he can’t wait for even the brief time it would take to go upstairs to his lodgings. Maybe he needs to relieve himself right now, outside (just like thousands of men do, every night, on the streets of London’s dark, dirty cesspool). And you’re maybe a little tipsy yourself, and your pipe is waiting for you upstairs, so you’re not going to look into this, you’re not going to analyze what is really a small personal manner. No, you’re going to just go upstairs right now and leave your friend alone.   
  
And, with a pat on Watson’s shoulder and a brief glance at the departing carriage, Holmes went.   
  
Watson watched the door close behind Holmes. His pulse was racing and he knew that he had only a very short time before Holmes became suspicious.   
  
Over the years of his acquaintance with Holmes, Watson had out of necessity developed some knowledge of how to conceal his actions from his friend. Watson was not an overly private individual (he couldn’t have lived under Holmes’s piercing scrutiny had he been) yet there were sometimes minor, trifling events that he did not wish to subject to Holmes’s relentless curiosity.  
  
Now he would have to set about utilizing this talent in service of a far more serious goal. He knew that the key step in successfully deceiving Holmes was to stick as closely to the truth as possible. If one invents an activity to cover an hour spent doing something else, it was best to actually perform that action if possible. So Watson unbuttoned his trousers, and then, once he was finished, walked into a quiet alleyway a short distance from their apartment.  
  
He would have to be quick, and yet Watson paused, momentarily unable to continue. This was dishonest. If he ate something, he should keep it. Eat too much one day and you can balance it by eating lightly or taking more exercise the next. That was what normal people did. And this been one of the rules he had made for himself, back when he had been trying regain control after everything had fallen apart—if you eat something, you have to keep it. No exceptions.  
  
But the idea of going back upstairs to his bedroom and trying to sleep as the minutes passed with the food lying heavy inside of him was impossible.   
  
So Watson leaned over onto the gutter and took care of it.  
  
He hated this. The whole process was vile, grotesque. The feeling of his finger at the back of his throat and the smell of the food coming up was all an insult, a punishment for his failure.   
  
The only way he could get through this was to distance himself, pretend that this was happening to someone else. No, that wasn’t him vomiting in a dark alleyway. It was a different man entirely, and Watson was on the outside, watching, as this other person finished his task and checked that nothing had splattered onto his jacket before walking back up the steps to 221B.  
  
He became himself again once he passed through the door. Holmes was holding his pipe, and a cloud of wispy smoke had already gathered around him.   
  
Watson greeted him without stopping, and went into his own room, where he quickly washed himself up and raised out his mouth with a glass of water. Once he was fairly confident that his appearance would pass muster, he joined Holmes in the sitting room.  
  
The two men sat without speaking for a while, and it was a comfortable silence. There had been a tension between them since Watson’s faint, and the doctor had not realized how disruptive this had been until it lifted.   
  
Now he saw that Holmes, too, had perhaps drank more than he had intended to, for his movements were languid and his eyes were heavy-lidded as he sat back in his stuffed chair.  
  
“You might be interested to know, Watson, that I have a new case.” Holmes’s voice was soft, cautiously broaching the stillness.  
  
“Oh?” Watson said.  
  
“Yes. It’s out of Town, so I’ll be rising early to catch the train tomorrow. The client is a peer, one of Mycroft’s colleagues, and there is a matter, apparently, which calls for an urgent investigation at his country estate.”  
  
“Do you know how long you’ll be gone?”  
  
“No more than a week or two, I would imagine.” Holmes was puffing at his pipe, and his next words came slowly, as if rising unbidden from great depths. “I thought of refusing at first when Mycroft asked me earlier this morning. I really did not want to leave at this time.”  
  
Watson was puzzled. Holmes selected his clients based on interest, not class, and it was common for him to turn down a request from a lady in favor of a more challenging problem from a governess. Yet Mycroft’s highly placed colleagues were generally an exception to this rule, and, moreover, Holmes did not usually reject a possibly remunerative case if he had nothing else pressing at hand.  
  
“I believe, though, after the progress of tonight,” Holmes continued, “I shall be more comfortable going away for a time.”  
  
“What progress?” Watson asked.   
  
Holmes straightened his lanky form, and the fog seemed to clear from his eyes. “The progress of that situation with Dobson, of course. Now that Lestrade has gone and saved the day, I am free to tend to other problems.”  
  
“Surely that was resolved yesterday and not tonight.”  
  
“I believe that I said yesterday?” Holmes’s tone was light. “No? Well, you will just have to forgive me then, Watson, if, lacking your flair for the romantic, I occasionally fall short of the eloquence you bestow upon my fictional counterpart.”  
  
“I believe I can find it within me to grant mercy for such an egregious fault,” Watson said, smiling.   
  
The two men talked for a while, touching only upon inconsequential subjects, until Watson reminded Holmes that, in view of his early departure the next morning, it might be wise for them to retire for the evening.  
  
Straightening up the room after Holmes had gone to sleep—of course the man thought nothing of leaving his pipe on the table to spread ash all over the rug—Watson’s gaze fell upon the “V.R.” that Holmes had shot into the wall with his pistol. Watson knew that Holmes had created the letters, which signified Victoria Regina, to honor the Queen. And yet, savoring the renewed peace between them (along with the return of the emptiness in his stomach), Watson could not help but feel that tonight the “V.” could stand for nothing other than victory.


	4. Chapter 4

_'Take some more tea,' the March Hare said to Alice, very earnestly.  
  
`I've had nothing yet,' Alice replied in an offended tone, `so I can't take more.'  
  
`You mean you can't take less,' said the Hatter: `it's very easy to take more than nothing.'  
  
`Nobody asked your opinion,' said Alice._  
  
It was always a pleasant surprise, Holmes reflected on the train ride back to London, when events came together in his favor. The case had been more interesting than Holmes had expected. After almost three weeks of steady investigation, Holmes had greatly enjoyed watching the facts—the ashes of the Trichinoploy cigar discovered outside the lady’s bedroom, the mysterious illness of the archduke’s heir and the final, tearful confession from the governess—fall into order. And, feeling the large ruby ring that now adorned his left hand, Holmes had to admit that serving a member of nobility could be quite rewarding.   
  
During the last few weeks, Holmes had consciously put aside his worry about Watson, instead concentrating on the details of the case with his characteristically all-encompassing dedication. Now, walking back to Baker Street, he allowed himself to fondly recall the evening he had enjoyed with Watson several weeks before. While he had found it odd that Watson had decided to have his clothing tailored after a single, stray criticism, Watson’s weight loss had been much less apparent in his newly formfitting suit. And the substantial meal Watson had eaten without prompting had further helped to relax Holmes’s fears, as had the healthy appetite with which the doctor had breakfasted with him the next morning.  
  
So Holmes was looking forward to seeing a recovered Watson upon his return, and was disappointed to find the lodgings empty and spotless, with all of Holmes’s papers neatly piled on the desk and the rug free of its customary clutter.   
  
Holmes set out catching up on the agonies columns and reading about the most recent blunders of Scotland Yard—reported as triumphs by the _Times_ , of course—before happily diving into an experiment that had been interrupted during his sojourn in the countryside.  
  
He was titrating a volatile combination of chemicals when, brushing against the table, he knocked a beaker (thankfully empty) onto the carpet. Annoyed, Holmes was reaching blindly behind himself to see if he find a way to could pick it up without taking his eyes from the solution, when he heard movement on the stairs, the click of the latch, and finally Watson’s familiar footsteps on the rug.  
  
“Watson, would you mind terribly picking that up for me?” he asked without turning.  
  
“Yes, Holmes, it’s wonderful to see you as well. How kind of you to greet me so politely before you attend to your experiment.” Watson’s tone was light, but Holmes’s outstretched hand remained empty.   
  
“Watson! You are going to ruin three hours of sustained labour!”  
  
Watson sighed, and Holmes felt him place the beaker in his right hand. Holmes poured the solution into the beaker and was watching the liquid turn blue, when the wrongness of Watson’s grip suddenly registered. Holmes, replaying the moment in his mind, felt a chill as he recalled how he had felt the bones in Watson’s hand and the way Holmes’s finger-tips had brushed against the too-prominent veins on the back of his friend’s palm.  
  
All at once his experiment no longer seemed so important.  
  
Holmes turned around slowly, preparing a casual smile that crumbled as he took in Watson’s appearance.  
  
Watson looked terrible. That was no way around it, no gloss or spin he could put on this essential truth. His clothing was closely fitted—and how could that suit still manage to fit? But of course, look, the threads and seam on the jacket show that he’s had the garment taken in again—but the precise tailoring merely served to emphasis the aching gauntness of his form. How could he have deteriorated so dramatically in the short time Holmes had been away? The doctor was smiling at him, happy to see his friend again, and this was perhaps the worst of it, because his features were a mockery of happiness, all teeth and hollowed cheekbones and dark circles beneath his eyes.  
  
“What happened to you, Watson?” It was a mark of Holmes’s utter shock that, forgoing analysis of data, he voiced a simple interrogative statement.  
  
“Happened to me?” Watson repeated. “Nothing’s happened.”  
  
And this was it, Holmes thought. He had reached the crux of the matter. He had observed, and he had watched, not wanting to act before weighing the facts in his mind. But he could not in good conscience deliberate any longer. There was no longer any doubt that something was very wrong with Watson.  
  
“Are blind, Watson? You look awful, in the true sense of the word, in that I feel awe at how terrible you look.”  
  
Silence.   
  
“What happened?” Holmes said again. “Are you ill? Have you been eating? Have you looked in a mirror lately?”  
  
At each question Watson took a step backward as though Holmes had struck him, until he was standing right up against the door. “I know. I already know,” he said. “I know what you think about how I look, Holmes. You don’t have to belabour the point with me.”  
  
There were two ways Watson could have lost so much weight so quickly. One was if he had some terrible illness. The other was if he hadn’t been eating (or if he had been eating very little) during the time Holmes had been away. And while a fearful voice whispered that Watson could actually be very seriously ill, the logician within Holmes insisted that all the signs pointed toward the latter hypothesis as the more likely explanation.   
  
“Have you been eating?” Holmes asked again.  
  
Watson crossed his painfully thin arms, still standing by the door. “Yes.”  
  
He was telling the truth, but something told Holmes that this was not the right question. “Have you eaten today?”  
  
Watson hesitated. He’s deciding whether to lie to me, Holmes thought, watching him. He’s considering lying, but he sees that I would know if he tried to deceive me, and now he’s thinking that he doesn’t have any choice but to tell the truth. “Not exactly,” he said finally.  
  
“Have you been eating regular meals since I left?”  
  
“I might have forgotten a meal or two,” Watson said. “I’ve had so many patients, and I’ve been going all about the city, and there just haven’t been time. You know how these things can just slip away from you when you’re busy.”  
  
Holmes thought it was rather more than two meals that he had missed. “Then I shall call Mrs. Hudson, and the two of us will have an early supper.”  
  
Watson shook his head, fear dancing in his eyes. “No. I only meant to stop in for a minute. I have an appointment that I’ll be late to if I don’t leave now.” He picked up his large black bag and turned to open the door.   
  
Holmes crossed the room, and put his hand on his shoulder, feeling the doctor’s bones under his shirt as he turned Watson to face him. “No,” he said. “This habit of skipping meals that you have fallen into must cease. We both know that there is no ‘appointment.’ You’re going to sit down with me and eat something, and this decision is simply not open to debate.”  
  
Watson brusquely removed Holmes’s hand from his shoulder and stepped away from him. “You don’t find this at all hypocritical, do you, that you’re lecturing me about regular eating habits?” he asked with something very close to anger.  
  
“You look ill, Watson. It’s simply not healthy.”  
  
“Not healthy?” His drawn face was flushed. “Would you like me to relate all of the times that I have sat here, in the very room, practically begging you to take the time to eat something—anything!—when you were in the middle of one of your cases?”  
  
Several examples of this exact situation came to Holmes. Guiltily, he said, “As I said before, I have ill-used myself once or twice. But, unlike you, I have never let the situation get out of hand.”  
  
“You really think that, don’t you?” Watson said. His voice was low and dangerously cool. “That I am the one who has lost control, and that you have never placed yourself in any danger.” He paused, looking at Holmes. “Would you like me to relate all of the thoughtless, unnecessary and just plain foolish risks I have watched you take with your health?”   
  
“How about last winter, when you were embroiled in that espionage case with the navy, and you wouldn’t eat or sleep for days, no matter how times I asked you to rest?” Watson said. “Or do you remember when I came back to find you lying in a drugged daze in your armchair, your syringe on the ground and the fire roaring in the grate? You could have burned the place down.”  
  
Watson held up his hand, counting the items off on his fingers as he spoke. “Or, let’s see, there was the case where you disguised yourself as a dock labourer and came back with that monstrous gash on your arm. And then, when I asked why you hadn’t cleaned the wound, you told me that you thought about cleaning it, but you decided that a real labourer would have left it unattended and that you did not want to tarnish the verisimilitude of your disguise. That cut could have easily turned to gangrene, Holmes. You could have lost the arm.”  
  
Could Watson be correct? Holmes thought. Taken together, this litany made him appear quite careless indeed. But he had reason for his actions in each of the instances the doctor had mentioned. In the espionage affair, for example, there simply hadn’t been time for rest or food, and, in any event, Holmes had replenished his strength with a large meal as soon as the case had ended.   
  
“The situations are not comparable, Watson,” he said. “The abilities of hunger and fatigue to magnify the powers of concentration—you understand that there are instances when, in the service of my intellect, I have no choice but to deny my body for a time and to call upon my constitution to insure that I come to no harm.”  
  
“Oh, I see. It’s fine when you go without rest until you can barely stand for one of your insufferable cases, but if stupid, bumbling Watson so much as misses a single meal it’s cause for alarm.” Watson’s voice had risen in volume, and he stood with his hands clinched into fists at his sides.   
  
It occurred to Holmes that he had never, during all of their years together, seen Watson truly angry. Frustrated, tired, annoyed—yes. But never enraged, never with his emotions not to some degree in check. Now the doctor was fully in the grip of a raging fury, his temper unbottling with a ferocity that was as frightening as it was unexpected.  
  
“That’s not what I meant—”  
  
“And no one can ever best you. Because you can play the violin like a maestro, identify a footprint at a glance, eat nothing for days if you don’t want to.”   
  
“That’s not it! That’s not it at all!” Holmes was almost screaming now, and would not have been surprised had his words been audible all the way in Mrs. Hudson’s rooms. “I have never starved myself for weeks on end, and I have never made myself look as thin, as ill, as diseased as you currently appear.”  
  
At this Watson reigned in his own temper. He did not withdraw or back down, but instead became cool, calm, collected. When he spoke, his even tone failed to prepare Holmes for the devastating content of his words. “It’s all a façade, you know, this myth of the infallible Sherlock Holmes. The truth is that you can barely handle the simplest tasks without help. Your lack of manners has left you with no companions except for myself and perhaps your brother. I am the one who ensures that you take regular rest. I am the one who keeps you from your cocaine. I am the one who ensure the flat remains fits for human habitation.”  
  
“That’s not true.”  
  
Watson swept his gaze over the beakers and chemicals and clutter that Holmes had spread about the sitting room. Wordlessly, he walked toward the door. Holmes did not move to stop him.  
  
Watson bent, the newly acquired slenderness of his arm exaggerated as he reached for his black bag. He opened the door. Halfway through it, he paused. “As you so astutely perceived before, Holmes, I have been in Afghanistan. I have been in far worse situations than you have encountered during any of your cases. I have decided which soldiers’ wounds I have the ability to treat, and which I must…leave to their own devices. I do not need a nursemaid to tell me when to eat supper, and I suggest that you stay out of affairs which are not your concern.”  
  
And with that, Watson left, the door shutting with a firm click behind him.   
  
It would be fair to say that Holmes was speechless for perhaps the first time in his life. He and Watson had fought before, yes—little tiffs that were really more of an excuse to show off their mutual talents for extemporaneous insult composition than anything else, more serious disagreements about Holmes’s cocaine use—but these were nothing compared to the battle that had just transpired.  
  
Holmes strode over to the window and watched Watson’s departing figure go down the street. Did he really mean the things he had said to Holmes?  
  
It was true that the detective did not have many friends. He was a solitary individual by nature, and Watson’s companionship had always been enough. Still, this lack of normal human interaction left Holmes unprepared for emotional firestorm of their fight. When was the last time he had really fought with someone for whom he cared? A struggle with Mycroft, lost in mists of his childhood? And trading barbs with a cornered villain was nothing like listening to the vitriol that Watson (his Watson!) had unleashed against him.  
  
Holmes began pacing, his hands intertwined behind his back, as he ran the conversation in his mind again and again. He had always sincerely believed that he was doing myself no great harm when he abstained from food or rest. But what if Watson was right? What if he really was a witless addict who hid behind a carefully crafted nest of idiosyncrasies to disguise the fact that Watson was all that kept him from falling completely into ruin? Did he really have any place to question Watson’s behavior?  
  
But the way Watson had looked, that gauntness that was so extreme as to be painful…  
  
What could Holmes do about it? He couldn’t hold the doctor down and force him to eat.   
  
And what if he just leaves? Holmes’s reason told him that the evidence was against this, that there was no data, nothing to suggest that Watson would not return to the flat.   
  
After years of training and discipline Holmes had succeeded (he thought) in becoming the ideal thinking machine, in burying the instinct within him that shied at noises in the dark and jumped at shadows. And yet it was that long submerged part of him that painted a picture for him now, a picture in which Watson, still furious, announced that he was moving out. The lodgings would become more and more untidy, full of clutter and dirt and chemicals. And Holmes, returning from a case with Lestrade and Gregson, would enter an empty apartment, with only his cocaine bottle waiting for him.  
  
No. He couldn’t let that happen.   
  
And he also could not Watson continue to avoid eating.   
  
Still pacing, he weighed these dueling objectives, unable to determine a course of action.   
  
Unbidden, his mind turned to the neat morocco case that lay hidden in his personal quarters. Though he partook of the cocaine less frequently now than in his youth, when the cases had been few and far between, the habit was sleeping rather than vanished, and he still kept a quantity secreted in his room.  
  
Now the urge for the drug rose up with an aching, physical pressure. He grasped his sinewy forearm, running his finger-tips over the ghostly scars left by the innumerable puncture-marks. Then, not without effort, he let the arm fall to his side.  
  
No. Any influence he had upon his friend would evaporate if Watson came back to find him in such a state.  
  
Shouting at Watson had not succeeded. But there had to be a way Holmes could ease him back into eating without destroying the bond between them.  
  
Looking back, Holmes could not understand how matters had sprawled so quickly out of hand. This problem with Watson had begun like any of his other cases: a gathering of data, then contemplation and finally a vocalization of the facts—an ordered, linear progression of events.   
  
Now, the situation was unfolding without reason, without control. Holmes recalled the hansom cab that had almost run Watson down in the street, how the driver had managed to divert the horses just in time. Who, he wondered, is holding the reins here—him or Watson? Who is driving this carriage?


	5. Chapter 5

_'Once upon a time there were three little sisters,' the Dormouse began in a great hurry; `and their names were Elsie, Lacie, and Tillie; and they lived at the bottom of a well--'_  
  
`What did they live on?' said Alice, who always took a great interest in questions of eating and drinking.  
  
`They lived on treacle,' said the Dormouse, after thinking a minute or two.  
  
`They couldn't have done that, you know,' Alice gently remarked; `they'd have been ill.'  
  
`So they were,' said the Dormouse; `very ill.'  
  
Watson was lost in a sea of gray. He had walked and walked and now he was down by the Thames, drowning his eyes in the river’s muddy water. All colors had leached away from his surroundings, and everything was pale and frozen. Dimly, he remembered light and color, as one might recall minor characters from a half-forgotten novel. Now, the moment was forever, and he had always been like this: walking, empty and alone.  
  
Or not alone, because the hunger was always with him, filling him with a delicious lightheadedness that made him feel as though he was skimming above the icy coldness of the world.   
  
Holmes had left him no choice. Screaming at him, accusing him, cataloging with his keen, emotionless gaze all the things that were flawed about him (which was everything), until Watson would have done anything just to make him stop.   
  
Ill. Not healthy. Awful. Diseased. It was as though Holmes had reached into Watson’s brain with those long, nervous fingers and pulled out everything that Watson knew to be true about his body.  
  
But another word soared up, piercing through the grey that surrounded him—thin. Holmes had said he was thin.   
  
Which meant Holmes no longer thought that he was fat. Which meant that Watson should cease this plan, that he should return to a less restrictive eating regime that merely maintained his current weight.  
  
Only it wasn’t about what Holmes thought, not anymore.  
  
It was about how he could still feel the fat on his legs, his stomach, everywhere. It was about keeping the world from spinning away from him. It was about how every step he took (every bite he put into his month) was like walking along the edge of a blade, step and step and step until his feet were cut to pieces and pain began to bleed into pleasure.  
  
It was about how he didn’t know how to stop.   
  
He stood still, and leaned against the railing overlooking the river. The fury he had directed against Holmes, where had that anger come from? And the war, how had that come into it? The blood and the heat and the piercing pain of his leg and his shoulder—none of these things had any place in his current life, no more than he now bore any resemblance to the chubby child he had been so long ago.  
  
The rage had left him hours ago, and now Watson realized that he was very tired. He did not want to go back to face Holmes and the way that he had drudged up every flaw and weakness he could think of in order to hurt his friend. But where else could he go?  
  
So Watson made the long journal home to Baker Street as the street turned to darkness around him, opening the door to find that the sitting room—miracle of miracles!—was almost as spotless as it had been that morning, with all of Holmes’s chemical paraphernalia cleared up and packed away. For a moment Watson thought that Holmes had left, gone (where?), but then he heard the strains of his companion’s violin. Not a mournful melody, as Watson might have expected, but rather something fast and feral, all rushing arpeggios and souring portamentos.  
  
Watson headed to his own quarters, not wanting to interact with Holmes, but the music stopped in mid-chord as he passed by the detective’s room. The door opened halfway, revealing Holmes, who was holding his bow in one hand.

“Watson?” The hurt he had inflicted was still visible on Holmes’s features and if it had been anyone else, Watson would have said that he sounded fearful. “Could I speak with you for a moment?”  
  
No. Not now. He did not have the strength for another confrontation, and if Holmes verbally attacked him again, he did not know what he would do. “What is it?” he asked.  
  
“About our discussion today—”  
  
Watson stepped away from him, ready to flee to his room.  
  
“I’m sorry.”   
  
Watson turned back, astonished.  
  
“I’m sorry,” Holmes repeated. “I never meant to give you the idea that I think you are in any way less capable than I am, or that I believe you cannot handle your personal affairs.”  
  
Holmes seemed to be waiting for a response, but Watson had no words to give him. Of all of ways in which Holmes could have reacted to his outburst, he had not expected this.  
  
“I trust you,” Holmes continued. “Of the two of us, you are the one with the medical knowledge. I trust that you would know if there was a problem, and that you would not put yourself in serious danger.”  
  
“Thank you,” Watson finally managed. Not his most coherent reply.  
  
“I just…” Holmes stopped, seemed to rethink what he had been going to say. He tried again, “I just want to be sure that you are safe. You’ll forgive me, if I worry just a little bit? You’ll be, perhaps, kinder than I have been to you in the past in similar situations, if I sometimes try to help you remember to take care of yourself?”  
  
Holmes’s hesitation (so unlike him), seeing the detective actually pleading with him: Watson had never wanted any of this to happen. He’s only acting this way because of what you said to him, Watson thought, guilt twisting inside him. But under this: a blessed feeling of relief. Finally, he’s going to leave me alone. He’s not going to shout at me anymore.  
  
“I’m not upset any longer, Holmes. Let’s just consider the matter closed.” _I’m sorry. I didn’t mean any of it, you know that, don’t you?_ But he couldn’t say any of that, couldn’t risk anything that might make Holmes press him again.  
  
“Good.” Holmes’s left hand, which had been nervously running up and down the length of his bow, fell still, and the man regained some of his customary self-assured manner. “Good, it’s agreed then. Tomorrow, you and I can sit down and we’ll start over, have the polite reunion we should have had in the beginning. I can tell you about all the schemes of avaricious governesses in the countryside, and maybe you can help me shed some light on how Lestrade managed to convince the _Times_ to describe his handing of that matter with Jefferson Hope as ‘masterful.’”  
  
“Yes, that would be agreeable. Good night, Holmes.” Watson turned his back and started to his room. He’s going to stop me, he thought. He’s going to suggest that we eat supper together, or go out to a restaurant.   
  
But Holmes merely closed the door to his own quarters, and in a few moments the sound of his violin started up again.  
  
In his own room, Watson began preparing for bed as the violin continued, the music becoming louder and more frenzied. Watson had trained himself long ago to sleep through the noise when Holmes played late at night. He had never complained, because he knew that in many ways Holmes’s violin was as necessary to the detective as clean shirts and an orderly room were to him. Now, though, the melody seemed to contain all of the questions and challenges Holmes had failed to put into his words and the wild, frantic music stood between him and sleep. At least, Watson thought as lay in bed with his eyes open, his guilt churning into a heavy, bloated feeling in his stomach, at least now he’ll leave me alone.  
  
But Watson soon learned that he and Holmes had very different notions of just what it meant, exactly, to worry just a little bit.  
  
  
It was as though the world had been turned on its head. Holmes’s habits became orderly and regular. He breakfasted each morning, never forcing Watson to eat, but was already ready with pleasant conversation if the doctor should choose to sit with him. He often would find Watson at midday (how Holmes always seemed to know his location was a mystery). He would invite Watson to join him for a meal, always offering excuses as to why he needed the doctor’s presence—this client, the strangest symptoms Holmes had ever come across and would Watson mind terribly if Holmes imposed upon him for his medical opinion?—which Watson found impossible to refuse.   
  
Suddenly Mrs. Hudson’s repertoire of recipes seemed to consist solely of Watson’s favorite dishes, and each night Holmes would take his dinner at the same hour, tempting Watson with the sounds and smells as he chewed and ate everything with visible enjoyment, including those foods which Watson knew that Holmes personally disliked.  
  
Holmes’s apology had been a subterfuge, a feint to trick Watson into letting down his guard. This was war, and the dinner table was the battlefield. And one day Watson was in the lead, ignoring Holmes’s silent implorations to dine as he savored the hollowness within him. And then next day Holmes pulled ahead, watching as the Watson succumbed to his entreaties, and consumed half an apple tart.  
  
It was exhausting. Stratagems within stratagems, up and down, and up and down again, weaving and dodging as he mentally sparred with Holmes. Each day was a trio of pitched battles to be suffered through.  
  
Breakfast.  
  
Tea was a prerequisite for all daily activity. Watson needed the alertness it provided to shake off the weariness that constantly frightened to overwhelm him.  
  
Holmes, already at his breakfast, attacked the eggs and sausage, a battered-looked journal in his hand instead of his usual newspaper. Without looking up, he passed Watson a cup filled with hot tea.  
  
Watson took a sip. The tea was weak and milky, sickeningly sweet with none of the bitter energy he needed.  
  
“What is this, Holmes? You know that I don’t take this much sugar.” Watson pushed the cup aside and poured himself another.   
  
Holmes said, “Sorry. I must have handed you my drink by mistake.” He brought the rejected cup to his lips.  
  
“You don’t take that much sugar either.”  
  
“I’m going to the courthouse this morning to listen to Lestrade testify what will surely be a bungled account of the evidence in that forgery case you assisted me with last summer. I’ll need all the sweetness I can get.”  
  
“You might want to add another spoonful, then.” Watson took a piece of toast, placed it carefully on his plate, and used his knife to apply a very light layer of butter to the bread.  
  
Holmes, still reading, said, “The eggs are very good.”  
  
“I’m not that hungry.”  
  
“You should have more than just toast.”  
  
“I’m fine.” A touch of warning now crept into his voice. Their unspoken rules of engagement dictated that Holmes could make one or two comments like this each day, but no more than that.   
  
“You’re so thin, Watson. I wish you would eat more.”  
  
“I’m really that not hungry.” Or that thin.  
  
“All, right.” Holmes turned his attention back to the journal.   
  
Watson glancing over, saw that he was reading an old medical journal, a volume of the Clinical Society of London’s “Transactions” from all the way back in 1874. What could interest him there?  
  
Watson asked, “What are you reading about?”  
  
“Research for one of my cases,” Holmes said shortly. “A particularly stubborn one.”  
  
“I see.” Watson took a bite of his toast. The bread was an inert coarseness in his month, the placement of another game piece in this relentless, unending struggle. Had food ever had a taste? Watson couldn’t remember.  
  
Lunch.  
  
An unexpected reprieve—Holmes was ensconced at court, and thus unable to pester him. Watson, with a break between his patients (who had began to ask with such frequency if Watson was ill that he almost suspected Holmes of drawing them into some sort of conspiracy) returned to the flat, noting as he hung up his coat how well Holmes had managed to maintain the cleanliness of the sitting room.  
  
The door to Holmes’s room was ajar, and Watson pushed it open, stepped in.  
  
Here the order was less complete, although Watson could see that Holmes had made an effort at tidiness. I’m just looking to see if I need to clean anything up for him, he told himself. He never knew what he would find in Holmes’s room—dirty plates, open containers of chemicals, decomposing food—items that could become noxious if left unattended.   
  
This really was better than usual. Some tobacco ash was on his table and Holmes’s books were scattered about, but there was not really much at all in the way of actual dirt.   
  
Then, carefully listening for any sounds of Holmes’s return, Watson went to a chest of drawers set along the wall of the room. He opened it, and pulled out a pair of Holmes’s trousers. He held them against himself, remembering.  
  
It had been one of those days, unhappy patients, mud splattering up in the streets, everything just a little too difficult. And Holmes, away on some errand, and so Watson had stolen into his room, telling himself that this was wrong, disturbed, but still unable to resist. He had enviously pictured Holmes’s lithe, slender form as he took off his own slacks and attempted to fasten up the detective’s grey trousers, wincing when he couldn’t even pull them up above his thighs.  
  
That had been a bad day, a day when he had gone to the baths twice, reading the number on the scale again and again to remind himself that nothing had changed and that he was still in control.  
  
Now, though. Now, he quickly discarded his own clothing and pulled on the trousers, watching as they slid on, passing his thighs easily. But—his hips, some tightness there as the fabric caught against the blades of his sides—and then they were up, the buttons fastened with some actual looseness around his waist.   
  
Yes! This was it. Only—his hips. Watson reached down, feeling through the fabric. He found mostly bone and little flesh, yet there still had to be a way to fix this, a way to shed the intolerable wideness that remained.  
  
It wasn’t that he wanted to be Holmes. He wanted what Holmes had. He wanted that unthinking command over food. He wanted to be able, as Holmes did, to eat or to not eat without effort, to have those dexterous limbs, that graceful, lengthy form.  
  
Holmes. What if he came back right now? What explanation could Watson offer if Holmes found him in his room like this, wearing his clothing? It was unthinkable.  
  
Watson quickly undressed, put his own slacks back on, and returned Holmes’s trousers to his drawer, making sure to emulate the detective’s inexpert folding. He left the room, leaned against the wall, caught his breath.   
  
All right, he thought. Let’s put this away. Lock this episode up. Forget it. He had not gone into Holmes’s rooms and tried on his clothing. Would he do such a twisted, shameful thing? No. Of course not. Never.  
  
Dinner.  
  
Holmes sat at the table at his now customary hour, eating his peas and chicken with apparent gusto. Watson slid in across from him and put some food on his plate, pushing it into neat shapes.  
  
Holmes made no recriminations. He very deliberately did not look down to see how much Watson was (wasn’t) eating. Instead, he inquired about Watson’s opinion of Parliament’s latest annoucements—Holmes, making polite conversation? Holmes, talking about politics?—while his eyes pleaded with him: are you really not going to eat?  
  
Holmes was cutting up the chicken, spearing the peas with his fork. And that was thing—  
Holmes hated peas. Never ate them. It was Watson who liked peas, Watson who enjoyed their smooth, neat roundness.  
  
All right.   
  
Watson moved the peas into even lines of ten each on his plate—ten was a nice, round, orderly number. He cut the chicken into groups of five slices each—another good, strong number. He put a piece onto his fork. Ate it. And another. He repeated this process (cut, fork, mouth, chew) again and again, trying to ignore his rising panic.  
  
Holmes continued babbling, offering the most inane opinion of the recent financial crisis, and Watson could sense rather than see his relief.  
  
Slightly less than half of the food had vanished from Watson’s plate. That was it. He simply couldn’t eat anything more.  
  
“You’ll have to excuse me, Holmes,” he said, and pushed back his chair, practically running to his room. Once the door was closed, Watson sat down on his bed and held his hand on his stomach. He hated everything about this. He hated the feeling of food turning into fat inside of him and he hated the idea that he had failed to follow his rules.  
  
The idea of going downstairs and fixing it was so strong that Watson could almost feel the food coming up in his throat. It would be so easy. The new, polite Holmes would never challenge him.   
  
Watson stood up. He paused in the center of his room, trying to think of an excuse for why he would need to go outside at this hour. His attention lit upon his bookshelf.  
  
Books. Reading. Newspaper. Maybe he would say he needed to buy an evening edition of the _Times_.  
  
Or he could have a quiet evening indoors, read something. He hadn’t read a book in ages. He pulled a novel at random from the shelf, examining the cover without really taking in the words on it. Watson’s library was organized alphabetically by author, and within author by publication date. He dusted the spines of the books each week. The area had always seemed suitably clean.  
  
But now he realized that although the visible exterior of his collection was free of dirt, the covers and pages of each book, as well as shelves themselves were all coated in thick grey dust. This was unacceptable.   
  
So Watson removed all the books from the shelf. He cleaned the front, back and sides of each volume, and then wiped the dust from all the shelves before returning the books to their places. This took him three hours. When he was finished, he sat on his floor in silence, staring at the spotless spines facing out at him, the heaviness having finally left his stomach.


	6. Chapter 6

_Alice had never forgotten that, if you drink much from a bottle marked `poison,' it is almost certain to disagree with you, sooner or later._  
  
Holmes had never been a fan of repeat performances. He despised monotony, and relished in how the infinite variety of his profession rescued him from the insufferable tedium of routine. So, it was quite upsetting for Holmes to find himself trapped in the never progressing and frankly rather wearisome drama that seemed to be on permanent engagement these days at good old 221B.  
  
Let’s set the stage, shall we?   
  
Enter one Mr. Sherlock Holmes, playing the rôle of the polite and respectable detective. Watch as he, regular as a clock, enjoys his morning meal precisely on the hour. Now, enter a Dr. John H. Watson, taking the part of the fool here in our little play, and marvel at how he claims with Shakespearian hubris that he, alone among morals, does not require sustenance to live.   
  
Exeunt Watson, pursued by his own folly. Exit Holmes.  
  
End scene.  
  
Now repeat. Again and again and again.   
  
“Here,” Holmes said, wearing his best what-a-lovely-morning-this-is-to-starve-yourself-my-dear-Watson smile as he handed the doctor a cup of tea.  
  
Watson made a face as he drank. “I have told you before that I don’t like my tea this sweet.”  
  
“My apologies, Watson. I forgot that you prefer a more pungent brew.”  
  
Watson tried to pour himself another cup, frowning when he realized that the pot was empty.  
  
“Oh, I’m sorry,” Holmes said. “I’m afraid that was the last cup.”  
  
Watson looked at the drink, debating. Finally he drained the liquid in several thirsty gulps. Holmes could see the veins in his throat move as he swallowed.   
  
Well, that was something at least. The trick with the tea was a new and (he thought) rather clever development. And while Watson had eaten no breakfast, Holmes could take comfort in knowing that he had at least some nourishment—the detective had dumped sugar into the tea until the liquid was supersaturated with the crystals, along with the richest cream he could find.   
  
Watching Watson’s skeletal form depart, though, Holmes realized that this happiness merely illustrated how fully he had been drawn into his friend’s twisted reality. Tea serving as an acceptable substitute for food? This was insanity.  
  
Yet, his attempts to shed light on the doctor’s mysterious malady had been largely unsuccessful. Holmes had tracked down an old account by Sir William Gull, in which the physician described several cases that struck a familiar chord—refusal of food, a "peculiar restlessness", extreme emaciation. Several of these patients had, through application of food and rest, recovered (one, Holmes read as a chill ran down his spine, had died) but the author did not seem to have any idea as to why the afflicted people had starved themselves to begin with.  
  
Watson was eating more now than he had during Holmes’s absence, but more than almost nothing wasn’t really very much at all. And worse, Holmes still did not understand why Watson continued to deny himself one of life’s basic requirements. The notion that Watson was simply too busy to eat was patently false; the doctor put more effort into not eating than Holmes had seen him apply to anything else.  
  
Holmes was out of his depth here, and for the first time, he wished for a colleague whom he could consult for advice. But the idea of going to Lestrade or Gregson and explaining the matter to them was absurd.  
  
Only, he remembered, there was one man in London whose intellect Holmes did believe to be superior to his own.  
  
“You’ve seen Gull’s take on it, I suppose?” Mycroft Holmes was at ease, his corpulent figure relaxed as he enjoyed an after dinner drink in the soothing confines of the Diogenes Club.  
  
“Yes. It wasn’t very helpful.”   
  
“No, it wouldn’t be.” Mycroft, leaning forward in his seat, polished off the last crumbs of their supper. What a relief it was, Holmes thought, to dine with a companion who ate without prompting. “And you’ve read Morton as well?”  
  
“I’ve afraid haven’t come across that one.”  
  
“Pity. Not a recent source—Richard Morton died in 1698—but still surprisingly instructive. He says in his Phthisiologica that the disease first ‘flatters and deceives the patient,’ which I think is quite nice turn of phrase for a doctor. It reminds me of your Watson’s writing.”  
  
“And you think that Watson has a disease.” Not a question.  
  
“Most assuredly. But of the mind first and foremost, Sherlock, and not of the body.”  
  
“Then what is the source of the illness?” said Holmes. “What is the motive for this behavior?”  
  
“Have you tried asking him?” Mycroft’s grey eyes were cool and emotionless.  
  
“I told you about that.”  
  
“Ah, yes,” Mycroft said. “Your infamous fight. But you didn’t actually get around to asking him anything, Sherlock. Whenever you tried to find out, he just brought up one of your little insecurities and suddenly you’re both arguing about something else entirely.”  
  
“Do you know what caused the disease?” Please, Holmes thought, let brilliant brother Mycroft solve this case for him.  
  
“I have no idea.”  
  
Holmes put his head in his hands.   
  
“But you should be able to deduce it fairly easily.” Holmes looked up.   
  
“It’s clear that Watson uses food as a kind of yardstick,” Mycroft said. “He needs to control it to feel at ease; it’s almost an act of worship for him when he doesn’t eat. And when something upsets him, the dark deity inside of him becomes more difficult to appease. The ritual takes a more central position in his life, and this odd business of his with the food intensifies.”  
  
Listening to Mycroft, Holmes sometimes glimpsed what he imagined other people must feel around him—that sense of blindness as someone else found meaning where he could not. And while something about this explanation felt strange to him, it still fit the facts of the situation better than anything he had dreamed up.  
  
“So there must have been an event—call it the catalyst—that set him off, made him start on this course,” Mycroft said.  
  
Yes. Of course. Holmes entered the warehouse of his memory, going back through the days, weeks, months, searching for the last time he had actually seen Watson eat freely, the images flipping through his mind faster and faster.   
  
The sitting room. Breakfast. Watson was digging into his bacon (what Holmes would give now to see him eat half that amount, even a quarter of it), taking another bite of his eggs. And then, Holmes, laughing at him, criticizing him for eating too quickly, saying that he thought Watson had put on weight.  
  
“So it was you, then. You were the catalyst.” Mycroft said, watching Holmes coldly, his form shadowed in the dim light of the club. For a moment Holmes wanted to hit his brother.   
  
“Sherlock.” Mycroft’s voice was gentle. “Of course, I don’t mean it like that. You know you’re not to blame. This illness was obviously rooted deep inside of him long before you met him, just waiting to be set free. Anything could have done it—a comment from a stranger, a difficult patient, anything at all. It was pure chance that it was you.”  
  
Holmes shook his head. “I should have known.”  
  
“How could you have known?” And Mycroft was talking, masterful machine-like Mycroft, full of logical reasons for why it wasn’t Holmes’s fault.   
  
Holmes looked away from his brother. There was already so much he was juggling—the foreignness of keeping regular hours, the stress of maintaining a cheerful, balanced persona. This revelation threatened to pull everything down, so Holmes forced himself not to process it, pushed it from his consciousness.  
  
“The drug won’t help either, Sherlock.”  
  
“How did you—”  
  
“You were touching the scars on your arm.”  
  
Holmes forced his hands to his lap. “You have to tell me how to fix him,” he said.  
  
Long silence. Holmes could almost feel the room vibrate with the force of Mycroft’s computation.  
  
“Hospitalization, or forced feeding under the care of a physician would probably be the safest treatment,” Mycroft said. “But I think that you’re too afraid to commit him, except perhaps in the last extremity of the disease.” Mycroft paused, held up a soft hand before Holmes. “No, Sherlock, keep your hands in your lap. I don’t really think this is the place a brawl.”  
  
Holmes hadn’t changed his expression, hadn’t moved a fraction, but of course Mycroft would know exactly what he was thinking.  
  
“I don’t mean to insult you. But we have to look at the facts of this situation as they are, and not as we might wish them to be. And in any event, even if you put Watson under a doctor’s care, well, that then? He is forced to eat without having rooted out the cause of the issue, and as soon as something else sets him off, he’ll just enter on this path once again.”  
  
“So it’s hopeless then,” Holmes said.  
  
“I never said that. Truly, I don’t understand where you picked up this lamentable penchant for melodrama.”  
  
Holmes closed his eyes. Tell me what to do, he was thinking. You always know everything before I do, Mycroft, the answers to all of my cases, and you have to know this as well.   
  
“I—” Mycroft began.  
  
“Don’t say you don’t know,” Holmes said.  
  
“I think you have to make him see,” Mycroft said finally.  
  
“Make him see?”  
  
“Whatever he sees when he looks in the mirror is clearly not a true reflection. You have to show him what’s really there, and then maybe he will find a way to stop.”  
  
Holmes was walking back and forth in front of the window, looking at the dimly lit length of Baker Street below him. It was very late, and where was Watson? Why was he not back yet? Holmes was picturing him lying crumbled in the street as a hansom cab rushed at him, when he finally, finally heard the doctor’s tired footsteps on the stairs, and then Watson was in the apartment, his boots covered with a collection of mud and dirt, a geological survey of his wanderings throughout the city.  
  
“I need to talk to you,” Holmes said.  
  
“Can’t it wait until the morning? I was going to go to bed,” Watson said, already heading to his room.  
  
“I have a question to ask you.”   
  
Watson waited. The walk had clearly depleted his strength, and he glanced at the wall as though he wanted to lean against it.   
  
“Do you think I need to lose weight?” Holmes asked.   
  
Watson’s expression was incredulous. “Of course not. Why would you think something so silly? You’re so thin.”   
  
“Good,” Holmes said. “I agree.” He watched Watson carefully. “Do you think that you need to lose weight?”  
  
Watson’s face closed against him. In a small voice, he said, “We both know that I do.”   
  
Gently, Holmes took his arm, and pulled Watson toward him. He meant this to be a gentle tug, but Watson had become so light that moving him was alarmingly easy.  
  
Holmes rolled up his sleeves, then Watson’s. He brought their limbs together so that their arms were side by side. There, he thought, willing Watson to understand. Can’t you see?  
  
Holmes’s arm was pale and slender, yes, but with a sinewy, lean musculature that bespoke of strength and vigor. Watson’s arm was just thinness without muscle, bones lightly clad in flesh, his joints a knobby protuberance.  
  
Watson, unmoving, did not react to his action.  
  
“How can you say that you are fat when you are thinner than I am?” Holmes said.  
  
Watson pulled his shirtcuff back over his arm. “No,” he said. “I’m not.”  
  
“Yes you are,” Holmes said. “Can’t you see?”  
  
Watson was shaking his head, touching his side. “I’m so much wider than you are.”  
  
Holmes looked at him, saw how his hipbones seemed to be the only thing keeping his trousers above his famished waist. “Those are your hips, Watson. That’s bone.”  
  
But Watson turned away, the lines of his skull visible as he moved.  
  
“John,” Holmes said.  
  
Watson stopped, clearly startled at Holmes’s use of his Christian name.   
  
“John,” he said again, “Please eat something. Just something small, please? I know that you haven’t had dinner.”  
  
And Watson looked really upset now, like he wished that he could please Holmes but didn’t know how. “I can’t,” he said.  
  
“Please,” Holmes said, thinking, I hate hollow his cheeks are. “I will get down on my knees and beg you if I must.”   
  
Watson, even more distressed, still shook his head no.   
  
Holmes moved forward, lowered himself to the ground—  
  
“All right,” Watson said. “Don’t do that! Don’t! I will have something.”  
  
And so Watson found a stale piece of bread left over from some meal or other, got a plate. He tore the bread into small pieces with his fingers, eating mechanically, and then rubbed his plate with a napkin once he was finished. He left the room silently, handing Holmes the dish without meeting his eyes.  
  
Looking down at Watson’s empty plate, Holmes remembered that breakfast so long ago, Watson with his knife and fork, Holmes’s own hatefully sardonic voice, condemning him: You’d think you hadn’t eaten in a week.   
  
It was useless. No matter how many times he explained his methods to the doctor, Watson had never been able to deduce a man’s profession by the state of his watch, never been able to tell one footprint from another, never been able to perceive all the inferences were that was so clear to Holmes.   
  
And now Holmes could not make him see this either.  
  
Why did this have to be such a struggle? Forget rituals and diseases. Eating was the easiest thing in the world. Anyone could do it. Just put the food in your mouth and chew.  
  
Holmes left the plate on the table, entered his bedroom.   
  
Closing the door, he went straight to the morocco case, and removed his bottle and hypodermic syringe, his body humming with anticipation at the sight of the instruments. The beloved, familiar act of opening the bottle was enough to set his every nerve afire.  
  
Holmes held the syringe lightly, selecting a place on his left arm, and then—that sharp delicious touch of pain—he pushed down on the piston.   
  
Yes. This was it. The transcendence spread with infinite swiftness, building and building, rising toward a place of indescribable sweetness that remained just out of reach. Holmes took his violin from its case. The sound of the bow against the strings rose and fell, loud and soft and fast and slow all at once. And there was nothing, nothing at all that was anything like how he felt right now with the exaltation and the music both ringing within him.  
  
Later, when the black reaction came upon him, without deliberation he took up the syringe again, thinking only of that elusive sweetness as he drove its sharp point home.  
  
  
  
It was, Holmes thought afterward, pure luck that he had been there at all. He had been out on a case all day, and that had been good, because his mind had been stimulated and excited.  
  
Now, though, with the stolen items returned and the inspectors of Scotland Yard crawling over the site of the theft, no doubt doing their best to bungle up the evidence before the trial even began, his thoughts turned back to Watson and the quiet rooms at Baker Street waiting for him.  
  
And, of course, to the little bottle he had picked up at the druggist on the way home. This alarmed him somewhat, because even as he pictured himself opening his case and taking out his syringe, part of his mind was coolly calculating this reaction, and tallying up just how much he seemed to be looking forward to the drug.  
  
Turning onto the familiar corner just before Baker Street, he saw Watson, also heading home. He considered, briefly, halting before the intersection so that the doctor would go up into the rooms before him. Holmes was tired of Watson, tired of this whole sorry business. Over the last several days he had dropped the whole charade, stopped planning those silly meals, and just, well, watched as Watson went about merrily starving himself to death.   
  
Why? Because he had given up. There was nothing else he could do. He had tried everything he could think of, and he was finally out of ideas. He had found the solution, solved the mystery—ladies and gentlemen, it was Mr. Sherlock Holmes in the sitting room with the weapon of his biting wit!—and this point was when it usually all ended for him. If this was one of his cases, he would have turned it over to Lestrade by now, let someone else comfort the victim’s grieving family, and left, already on to the next client. And years later, when the victim was still dead, and the family still broken? Well, that matter would be finished for him, mystery closed, just another dusty note in his casebook and he wouldn’t need to think about it.  
  
But he would not sink so low as to hide from Watson. And so Holmes quickened his step, observing as he neared his friend that how Watson’s coat had grown loose again (had he lost more weight? It didn’t seem possible) and how his boots were covered with dust (red as he went past the Opera House, and then, see how he walked by the corner with all the gravel after that). Holmes still had no conception of the purpose of these walks, although he knew that Watson haven’t been tending to his patients lately, since he had happened to overhear (eavesdropped on) a conversation in which Watson asked a colleague if he wouldn’t mind taking over his practice for a few days, just until Watson recovered from this little cold that was making him so fatigued.  
  
Holmes was now side by side with Watson. He greeted him, and the doctor nodded in response, and Holmes turned his face away from him to the light of the lampposts lining the side of the street. Looking at Watson was painful now, and not just because of his thinness.  
  
Holmes had resolved that when Watson was in ‘the last extremity of the disease’, he would force him to seek care, and so every day he watched his friend, noted how he seemed to be disappearing slowly into himself, thinking, tomorrow I will do it. Tomorrow I will make him. And rising each morning, he pictured how the flat would look once Holmes was the sole occupant. Each morning, he watched Watson take his non-breakfast, and each morning he thought, not yet.  
  
Watson was slowing now, turning to Holmes, his legs unsteady. And Holmes remembered this from before—that other time Watson fainted. He touched Watson’s shoulder with concern. “Are you all right?” he asked.  
  
Watson started to nod yes, but then he stumbled, falling, and Holmes—again—was not there in time to stop him from hitting his shoulder with what looked like painful force on the ground.   
  
Holmes stopped, and went down on his knees to crouch above his friend. He pulled Watson up to his feet. “Do you think you can make it the rest of the way back? We’re almost there.”  
  
Watson began to affirm that he was, yet this clearly was false became his legs failed him again, and without Holmes holding him up he would have fallen back down. Holmes gently lowered Watson to what he hopped was a more comfortable place on the ground, thinking, maybe he will recover if he just sits for a moment.  
  
Holmes waited, then asked Watson if he could stand. Watson made a mumbled sound that did not suggest that he had recovered his ambulatory facilities. Now what? They really were not very fair from Baker Street, but Watson seemed to be completely unresponsive, a dead weight in his hands and too heavy to carry this far.  
  
But what was he thinking? Watson was many things. Heavy was not one of them.  
  
He bent down, and lifted the detective up over his shoulder. Watson’s height and limbs made this slightly awkward, but his friend’s weight was sickeningly insubstantial, scarcely a burden at all. There was almost nothing there. Holmes could feel his bones and the rise of his vertebrae through his coat.  
  
Once he was back in the apartment, Holmes put Watson down on his bed, thinking that he should make sure that his shoulder wasn’t bleeding.  
  
Watson was still unresponsive, caught in a state that hovered next to sleep as he lay on the bed. Holmes methodically removed the doctor’s coat, his vest, his shirt and then paused.  
  
This happened to him sometimes at crime scenes, when the sight of the body was too much for him to take in all at once. He would find himself concentrating on something else instead, noting an unraveled thread on the victim’s collar or observing how a wayward lock of hair had fallen into his eyes.  
  
Now, he forced himself to look at the spreading purple of the bruise on Watson’s shoulder. This isn’t that bad, he thought, that discoloration will fade quickly.  
  
It was just—the rising shape of his collarbones, the hollow of his stomach, the ribs, completely outlined like an anatomical drawing, the lack of anything other than bone, how his body was just skin tightly pulled over a skeleton—fine, and the bruise should be gone in a few days.  
  
Really, Watson was in better shape than one might imagine, considering the force with which he had hit the ground. Holmes put his shirt back on for him, attempted to get him to go under the blankets, and then finally gave up on this, the sheets all twisted and tangled. He got a blanket, and put it over him. It was almost summer, so this should be enough to keep him from getting too cold (except, look at him, what flesh is going to keep him warm?), plus a spare duvet for good measure, and then left the room, closing the door softly behind him.  
  
He went in to his own room, and took the little bottle from his pocket. Tomorrow. It would have to be tomorrow.  
  
And right now, tonight, it was fast, easy, nothing, to let the syringe send that singing sensation into his vein. Only just once wasn’t enough this time, nowhere near it actually, and so then, again he pushed down on the piston with a terrible force that sent a ringing sound into his ears.  
  
And, yes, this was it, and for a little while he was perfect, better than perfect. He was walking all about the room, back and forward, reaching that bitter moment when, the exhilaration still roaring inside of him, he knew that that the bleakness was waiting just beyond his sight.   
  
It was at this point, the pleasure peaking, that the image of the old laboratory came before him. And there, of course, they were: young Holmes with his hands covered in plasters and acid stains, and Watson, still tan from his time in Afghanistan, shaking hands against a backdrop of test-tubes and Bunsen burners, being introduced, deciding to take quarters together.  
  
Holmes, circling around the unavoidable desolation, thought, why am I remembering this? That was a long time ago. That man doesn’t even exist anymore.   
  
And he was not sure whether he was thinking about himself or about Watson.


	7. Chapter 7

_`The first thing I've got to do,' said Alice to herself, `is to grow to my right size again; and the second thing is to find my way into that lovely garden. I think that will be the best plan.'_  
  
It sounded an excellent plan, no doubt, and very neatly and simply arranged; the only difficulty was, that she had not the smallest idea how to set about it.  
  
Watson woke up in his bed without a clear memory of how he had gotten there. There was a confused jumble (the street outside their flat, Holmes, a streetlight that became brighter) that slipped away from him as he dressed. There was also a fresh bruise on his shoulder that Watson didn’t know how he had gotten. But that was nothing to worry about; he had bumps and bruises all over his body from the falling, the vertigo and the way even just sitting on a hard surface seemed to leave a mark on him now. He simply must have forgotten the end of his walk back; this was also not surprising, as these little blank periods had started to occur with increasing frequency.  
  
The sitting room was empty. It had been several days now since Holmes had been ready with Watson’s morning tea. The detective’s diffident attempts at cleanliness had halted as well, and under Watson’s auspices the room had reverted to its former sterile spotlessness.  
  
The flat was very still.   
  
Watson went to the detective’s room, and there was Holmes still in bed, and Watson did not need to see the morocco case on his table or the way his room had fallen back into a disastrous state to know exactly what was happening.  
  
He closed the case with a click. You promised me.  
  
Holmes gave him a slow shrug under the blankets.  
  
“This morning?” Watson asked.  
  
“Last night. Nothing this morning.” The studied steadiness of Holmes’s left hand above the bedcover said, nothing yet.   
  
Watson walked around the detective’s room, picking up books and moving the violin into its case from where Holmes had left it precariously leaning against the window. Without his tea, he felt fuzzy and tired, the dizziness all around him.  
  
Holmes had that low, self-pitying expression that Watson disliked so much. You’re doing this to yourself, he thought. Why can’t you see that?  
  
“I wish I had never meet Stamford,” Holmes said dreamily, his attention far away.  
  
Only time could pull him out of this, Watson thought. Time and rest and food, though getting Holmes to partake of the latter two always was a challenge.  
  
“I was fine before, in my own flat. I had plenty of space, don’t know why I thought I needed something larger. I had plenty of cases to occupy myself, and then of course for amusement there was the splendid exercise of beating the corpses to produce bruising…”  
  
Watson tried to ignore this. Holmes was capable of spouting off the most grotesque and nonsensical statements when he was in this state. Watson instead went and got two sandwiches from Mrs. Hudson, came back and sat down on the edge of Holmes’s bed. He held the plates in his hand, thinking.   
  
Holmes sat up, threw off his blankets. He was fully dressed and Watson doubted he had slept at all the night before. “I need to tell you something,” he said, his agitation wild.  
  
And then it all came out, a long, muddled narrative, full of circuitous digressions and self-recrimination. But Watson, familiar with all the events described, understood as Holmes recounted his realization about that long-ago dinner, his efforts to trick or tease Watson into eating, how he had gone to his brother for advice.  
  
But most of all, what came through was Holmes’s exhaustion, how the events of the last few weeks had worn him down, how his initial perplexity had turned to fear and desperation. As the detective’s chronicle was wound down, his frantic energy departed, Watson heard him saying, his voice ghosting over the words, doctor, make you eat, hospitalization…  
  
All at once Watson was back, looking down into his lap as his father yelled at him. You can’t do this. It’s shameful. You look like a skeleton. People are going to think that we are starving you. After that, there had been the place in the country, the doctor, those horrible meals. And Watson, determined, had decided that this would never happen again, and that had been the beginning of his endless struggle not to fall, the first time he had felt knife blade under his footsteps and had know that this would always be there for him; that this pain, this hunger, would always be his to grow and to feed.  
  
Looking up, Watson said, “You want to send me away because you’re ashamed of how I look.”  
  
“I don’t care what you look like,” Holmes said. “Not at all. You could look as terrible as you want, and it wouldn’t matter to me if you were all right. But this…” He waved his hand, and somehow the gesture encompassed Watson sitting beside him, the squalor of his quarters, the empty sitting room outside, and even Holmes’s own trembling figure. “You’re in so much pain. I don’t want it to be like this.”  
  
Watson didn’t want it to be like this either. He hated this, he realized. He hated everything about it.   
  
“Here,” he said, trying to hand a sandwich to Holmes. “We should eat, and then maybe go for a walk outside. Some fresh air would be good for us.”  
  
Holmes raised his eyebrows, refusing to take the food. Then he laughed, a sound that was close to loathing than humor.   
  
After their last fight, Watson had stared into his mirror for a long time, unable to see whatever it was Holmes had tried so hard to show him. Now, watching Holmes’s pale face and quivering hands, taking in the hunger with which the detective’s gaze wandered to his case, Watson thought, maybe this is what he sees when he looks at me. Maybe he sees this pain, this weakness, this overwhelming sense of defeat.   
  
And then, watching Holmes, he realized, I don’t want to feel like this anymore. I can’t feel like this anymore.  
  
“The sandwiches are good,” Watson said. “I watched Mrs. Hudson make them, so you know they’re fresh. And the bread is cut diagonally like you like it.” He tried again to give the sandwich to Holmes, and this time the detective took it.  
  
They both ate slowly, Watson talking of nothing much at all, just soft, calming sounds to orient Holmes away from the darkness. He had missed this as well, just sitting and talking.  
  
When his food was halfway finished, Watson realized, quietly, that he was right. The sandwich was good. The bread was crisp and warm and the jam between the slices had the right amount of tangy sweetness, and so he kept eating until his plate was empty.  
  
And then, he waited for the weight to settle into his stomach. And yes, there it was, but different somehow, with its screaming immediacy muted just a fraction. And he thought, all right. I can handle this.  
  
He helped Holmes out of bed, leaving the plates on his table. A few crumbs wouldn’t really matter, not amongst the mess (right? It was all right to clean up later, wasn’t it?) and Holmes needed to get away from this room.  
  
They went down the street together, and it was so familiar, so much like those walks he had been taking for months now. He felt Holmes brush against him with a glance that said, I’m trying.  
  
And Watson, leaning against him, stopped walking for a moment, his pause saying, I know.  
  
And then they started walking again, step and step and step, the sound of their booted feet on the cobblestones mixing together. And Watson, thought, I can push past this. And Watson was waiting, ready, but then he took another step and another, and Holmes was beside him, and this time the pain did not come.  
  
  
Better was not a word Watson liked very much. It was the constant press for improvement, that notion that if losing some weight was fine, losing even more must be better that had begun everything for him in the first place.  
  
Watson wasn’t better.  
  
It was one of those warm, balmy days that were so rare even in summer. Holmes had convinced Watson that a boating holiday might be just what the two of needed, and so they had gone bobbing along the Thames in a rowboat, past the dreaming spires of Oxford and the green of Christ Church Meadow, the scrambles and scurry of the city lost in the bucolic splendor around them.   
  
And here at last Watson had found a task at which his friend did not excel. Holmes had began the day at the tiller, but his inapt navigation had sent the boat wandering all about the river—with Watson, amused, trying to row—until it finally became caught in the tangled roots of the riverbank. There, Holmes was drawn into a long argument about the signing of the Magna Carta with a bewhiskered don who was fishing amongst the rushes, and it was only with difficulty that they extricated themselves from the bank (and the professor) to continue their passage down the river.  
  
Switching places set them on a smoother course. Watson gently guided the boat, listening as Holmes’s conversation wove a meandering music—the mathematical papers of Charles Dodgson, the impetuousness of Elizabeth and Leicester—against the staccato beat of the oars. And this, Watson thought, watching the rise and fall of his friend’s forearms shifting the oars, his rolled up sleeves revealing the almost healed puncture wounds that dotted his pale skin, this is perfection.   
  
And with that thought, a sense of sadness infused his calm. Here and now, the moment was everything he wanted, the world around him sharp and fresh and clear. Yet he could already feel the images fading from his mind, could already imagine himself looking back later and reaching for the faded idyll of this day. It would not be like that for Holmes, he knew. The trees and the boat and every eddy and twist of the river would be frozen in his mind forever. You could question Holmes five years later, ten years, and he would still remember each word of his argument with that blasted professor.  
  
But what difference did it make if Watson remembered these minutiae? If he ever wanted to recall a detail, Holmes would be there to remind him, just as Holmes was there whenever Watson felt the old panic threaten him, and just as Watson was there whenever the darkness pulled at Holmes.   
  
Watson was watching the scenery rush by on the banks, steering the boat along the center of the river.   
  
He had never had that moment that Holmes wanted, never had seen whatever Holmes wanted him to see. He was still uncomfortable with what he saw when he looked in the mirror, perhaps always would be, and that was fine. Looking down at his hand on the tiller, Watson knew that there was more flesh on him now than had been before, and that was also fine.  
  
At midday they banked on a meadow and spread out a picnic on the grass. “Holmes,” Watson said, watching as three men glided along the river in a small rowboat overloaded with luggage, a brown terrier sleeping on top of the largest trunk, “this really is a most excellent day.”  
  
“To say nothing of the wonderful meal we have packed,” Holmes replied.  
  
A small silence.   
  
This was still a sensitive subject for both of them. But then the one of the men on the boat pulled out a banjo and began to produce a sound that was even worse than when Watson had tried to play Holmes’s violin, and their laughter broke the tension.  
  
Spreading the jam on the bread, drinking the smooth ginger beer, this was still an effort, and Watson could feel Holmes trying to not to watch him as he ate. But it was easier now not to count bites and pieces, easier to think of food as something he needed to have the strength to move the boat and to see the colors of the field around him.  
  
And it helped, too, that Holmes was there, and that he no longer left Watson to do all the cleaning up, but packed the hamper back up on his own. He even washed the dishes in the river, smiling at Watson with such satisfaction that the doctor didn’t even mind (much) that Holmes’s scrubbing had not completely succeeded in removing the stains on their cups.  
  
Then they were back in the boat, Holmes rowing more swiftly now, the oars splashing against the water, trying to reach the inn before nightfall. Only, what was the rush, really? The water was dappled with light and the heat of the sun on Watson’s back cast a golden glow into the easy silence between them.  
  
“Stop,” Watson said gently. “Let it rest.”   
  
And so Holmes placed the oars in their locks, sat against the stern of the boat. Watson released the tiller. He leaned back next to his friend, closed his eyes, let the current take them where it wished.


End file.
